Shoutbox

Hey

I’m going to make this thread because I’m basically sick and tired of everyone's opinion. And the majority of opinions are like an asshole; everyone’s got one and it stinks.


Moving on, I’ve been beta testing MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger for about 4-5 years now. I’ve submitted some bugs, gave feedback, posted some suggestions, etc to Microsoft. All my bug testing has been taken into account, and I don’t say this to sound important I just say this because I’ve seen bug fixes around reports that I have sent (of course this is because other people experience the same problem but nonetheless I contributed to it and I am glad)

My ideology of beta testing (whatever product not only limited to Messenger) is installing the product on different configurations. We are talking about Vista, XP, Windows 95 (yes of course I know it wouldn’t install and it is not a supported operating system but that does not matter and is not the point). Different hardware: nVidia/ATI cards, different motherboards etc. Then after that, I believe in trying different patches/add-ons (Plus! for example) to test if Messenger is stable and/or has changed in its method of operation.

Here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

quote:

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Beta testing comes after alpha testing. Versions of the software, known as beta versions released to a limited audience outside of the company. The software is released to groups of people so that further testing can ensure the product has few faults or bugs. Sometimes, beta versions are made available to the open public to increase the feedback field to a maximal number of future users.
It should be noted that although both Alpha and Beta are referred to as testing it is in fact use immersion. The rigors that are applied are often unsystematic and many of the basic tenets of testing process are not used. The Alpha and Beta period provides insight into environmental and utilization conditions that can impact the software.

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Let’s see: Environmental and utilization conditions; I believe that I under a normal environment and normal utilization of my PC using messenger I use patches and add-ons such as Messenger Plus! (including skins and scripts). And I am not the only member under normal and personal “Environmental and utilization conditions” that uses Messenger Plus!

That being said, for the future, I just ask everyone to respect each other’s ideology and let beta testers test the product however they like. If Microsoft had a problem with me beta testing with Plus!, I personally know that they would have told me a LONG time ago.