Microsoft focuses on Windows 10 quality after a difficult year

Microsoft has not been successful with Windows 10 in 2018. Earlier this year, Microsoft delayed updating Windows 10 in April 2018 due to last-minute BSOD issues (Blue Screen of Death) . shipped to more than 600 million devices. Last month, Microsoft released its update of October 2018 and was forced to disconnect it after a few days of users complaining about the deletion of files.

If these incidents were not enough, an engineer mistakenly changed a license server last week. Thus, many Windows 10 Pro machines were suddenly disabled. The year 2018 was messy.

Last month, I wrote that Microsoft was facing a big test of Windows 10 quality, especially since some of these bugs had even been reported to Microsoft via its Windows Insider test program. Microsoft is now listening to the reactions of Windows 10 users and is launching a series of blog posts to make more transparent the way it develops and tests Windows. The update of Windows October 10, 2018 is republished today and Microsoft plans to add a dashboard on the status of Windows updates in the coming year to document the unfolding of the current deployment.

Windows is a complex system to test because not all machines are the same, components, drivers, and software vary widely among the 700 million machines running Windows 10. "With Windows 10, we are working to provide superior quality to 700 million active Windows 10 devices, more than 35 million application titles with more than 175 million application versions and 16 million unique hardware / driver combinations, "said Michael Fortin, vice president of Windows. "In addition, the ecosystem provides daily new drivers, firmware, application updates and / or updates not related to security."

Windows 10 has been criticized for changing the way it tests the operating system. Previously, Microsoft used dedicated software testing engineer (STE) roles to ensure quality, but the software giant was removing most during a huge series of layoffs a year before the Windows 10 release. Instead, he favored developers testing their own work or reports from the Windows Insider comment program.

"We transferred responsibility for core functional testing to our development teams to provide superior code from the start," says Fortin. Microsoft has changed the orientation of validation tests and added customer feedback to the mix. Engineers also self-host and install the latest versions of Windows to test feature changes and bug fixes. "A strong self-hosting culture is a source of pride for those of us working on Windows," says Fortin.

However, testing is not limited to standalone hosting and Windows Insiders. Microsoft also offers specialized testing programs with PC manufacturers and even commercial customers to ensure bug detection. "Even a multi-element detection process will leave out the problems of an ecosystem as vast, diverse and complex as Windows," admits Fortin. "Up to now, we have focused almost exclusively on the rapid detection and resolution of problems. We will focus more on transparency and communication. "

A series of blog posts and improved communication in the future will be the starting point for the Windows team, but much remains to be done to perfect Windows 10 itself. It seems that Microsoft is aware of the fact that it is not necessary to constantly drop big new features in Windows 10 every six months and that it can focus on improving some of its features.

"We are seeing positive trends, but we clearly hear the voices of our users facing frustrating problems, and we are committed to doing more," says Fortin. "We intend to leverage all the tools we have today and focus on new quality-oriented innovations in product design, development, validation, and delivery." "

Microsoft will share the details of this new "approach to quality and emerging quality-driven innovation" in future blog posts. We expect to see some changes in the next update of code name 19H1 and others in the second non-name update for 2019.