I've been defending Microsoft's ship schedule for Windows Vista for quite some time. Up to this point, I've been confident that Vista would be at the quality level it needs to be by RC1 to make the launch fantastic. Having tested several builds between Beta 2 and today, I hate to say that I no longer feel that way.
Beta 2 was a disappointment on many levels. It was nowhere near as stable as it should have been, and was a huge memory hog. Later builds have improved stability and performance, and have introduced visual tweaks and enhancements that make Vista feel more like a finished product. But several events are conspiring to make life a lot more difficult for beta testers, and I forsee problems if they are not addressed.
News source: Longhorn Blogs
Fact: Microsoft is rapidly approaching check-in cutoff date for the Vista teams.
According to one Microsoft employee, this date is "only a few weeks away". That means that any changes that need to be made after that date are extremely difficult to get in. If Vista is going to RTM in late October/early November, that means RC1 will be due out late August/early September. If you're a beta tester, that's probably a scary thought.
Observation: Several teams are scrambling to get code checked in on time. I hate to use the Media Center team as an example, because they're moving extremely fast and working very hard to get their product out the door. But I have to. Media Center has a ton of enhancements in Vista, and is being developed for technology that probably won't even be on the market by the time Vista ships. They are working like crazy to meet their deadlines, and I don't think that it can happen without sacrificing the quality of the product. Unless they plan on updating Windows Media Center frequently after RTM, it's just going to cause problems. But don't come down on that team... several events in the cable industry have hampered some of their work. And don't kid yourself into thinking that the WMC team is the only one scrambling. They're just the easiest example.
Observation: One door closes, another door opens. No, I'm not talking about opportunity here, I'm talking about issue resolutions causing new issues. I've been thoroughly impressed. When Beta 2 came out, I defended Microsoft against the people that said "XP was more stable at this point, Vista should be too". Back them, I didn't think that was the case. Now, I have to agree. The last beta should have been a lot more stable. The RC1 builds have improved dramatically, but my experience is still vastly different with each build. As some systems tighten up, others seem to come apart. For example, I had issues resuming from Hibernate in Beta 2. Those issues were resolved in later builds, but new ones arose in the latest build I've been testing. That shouldn't be happening.
Observation: Jim & Co have forgotten what "Release Candidate" means. A release candidate means "Hey, we think we're finished, and this is the build we'd like to put out there. Is it ready yet?" From there, testers sign off on it and say yes, or they say "no" and Microsoft does additional work. It should always follow a stable beta, which Beta 2 was not. It's not another CTP that goes out... this means that they're finished. Windows Vista is not ready yet, and I don't think Microsoft will have it ready by the end of the month. So Microsoft should not call it a "Release Candidate" if it is not seriously up for consideration as a candidate for release.[/size]
Time For a Sanity Check
Microsoft has been pushing it's developers too hard to meet this deadline, and Vista is too complicated to allow it to be reached. Many people will twist my words and construe Vista's complexity as a bad thing; it's not, just the nature of software development. But that means that new realities have to be addressed in new ways. So I have a proposal for solving this problem and getting Vista out the door in the first quarter, without sacrificing product quality to the God of Everyone Else's Expectations:
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