Microsoft is closing all old bug reports they couldn't fix
That's a letter I received today:
This notification was generated for feedback item: <...> which you submitted at the Microsoft Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com) site.
Thank you for taking the time to report this problem. This problem was reported two years ago. In an effort to focus our resources on the most impactful problems, we are closing old Connect issues. If this problem is still important to you, please go to https://community.visualstudio.com and follow the instructions there to file a new report. It reminds me of an old joke from the Windows95 era: How many Microsoft engineers you need to change a light bulb?
None. Microsoft simply announces darkness the new standard. * - (please don't take it seriously) Apple does this after every iOS release.
Obviously I'm not filing "Radars" (Apple's name for a bug report) anymore. At some point, simply keeping track of these things is more overhead than it is worth. I don't work anywhere near the scale of Microsoft, but at some point, you just have to say, alright, we're not fixing this; it works completely different in version N+1 that you should have upgraded to years ago, and btw, we're actually on N+3 now, so we are not going to fix old, janky code that we already fixed. > it works completely different in version N+1 that you should have upgraded to years ago, and btw, we're actually on N+3 now, so we are not going to fix old That's not the case. The bugreport that they closed is still actual in the latest version. Refile it if you still care about the issue. I know it doesn't seem fair, but it's the only way to operate at this scale. It's bad. It conditions people to simply not bother reporting bug. For every reported bug there are thousands of users who already don't bother to report anything. Bug reports are free, very valuable input and if you have a bug reporting process you really should fix them. I already gave up on filing bug reports for MS products years ago for this exact reason. This is not a case of it's fixed in x, or you should upgrade to y, it is neglect plain and simple. I asked about this exact issue when they did an AMA in the SQL Server subreddit a while back, and I shit you not the response was that 'for a few years the team didn't have a lot of resources'... That's right, MS doesn't have the resources to properly support and develop SQL Server and the surrounding development tools. They were also encouraging everyone to vote on the connect items, as they were using vote count as the priority indicator for addressing issues. No intake triage, just get enough votes and maybe then they'll think about fixing some bugs. I simply don't use their tools any more where I can avoid it, and where I can't I'm looking for longer term replacement plans. The bigger issue is that they let it get this bad. In order to get this this point, they would have had to systematically fail triage bugs when they come it, fail to track them as they're fixed, and fail to rectify the problem for over two years. This is an admission that they probably never gave a damn about your bug reports. But hey: if you'd like to help this multibillion dollar company to triage their bugs and re-file an updated issue they would appreciate it. >> The bigger issue is that they let it get this bad. In order to get this this point, they would have had to systematically fail triage bugs when they come it, fail to track them as they're fixed, and fail to rectify the problem for over two years. In reality, it's not that easy. There have been times where, in projects that I have been involved, I wanted to fix a certain issue but the time required to setup, reproduce, investigate, fix and test against that and other versions, just adds up to a point where you cannot focus on the other equally important (new development) tasks at hand. So overtime, issues which might look easy to fix or interesting, do get piled up. > time required to setup, reproduce, investigate, fix and test against that and other versions And that's not the case again. I already provided all information to reproduce that bug easily. PS "bugs", actually. They've closed several bugs that I reported, though notified me about one only. I am not denying that many bugs that got closed might still be relevant and reproducible. What I meant in my comment was that this doesn't look like a bad or some kind of "we don't acknowledge or care about these issues" move. Rather this appears to be an attempt at getting the bug reports into a more relevant and manageable state. > getting the bug reports into a more relevant and manageable state What means that somebody got them into the unmanageable state, in the first place. Sadly this is not a two year issue, it's been going on for at least the last 10 years. I mainly deal with SQL Server, so maybe it's just particularly bad there - I haven't seen anything to indicate the rest of their products aren't like this to some degree though. There are active bug reports and feature suggestions for SQL Server that are more than a decade old. Having been part of projects that grew large over time and are composed of too many components, I understand why this is done. It reaches a point where you can't go to each open issue and see whether it's still relevant in the context of all the new and different technical changes that would have gone in during that period. That mail does seem to point to a place where users can report this afresh if it's still relevant. So, not a bad approach, to get these bug reports to hopefully in a more relevant and manageable state. They do this for bugs that are easily reproducible on all versions of these products as well. I received a similar response to a bug report a few years back, it had been open for a couple of years without even being acknowledged, then one day they decided to close it with a form letter listing possible reasons. People continued to upvote it, and finally 3 1/2 years after it was filed it finally got fixed. No interaction from anyone at MS other than the form response, and the final status change. I've filed about a dozen bugs reports on connect - and this is one of the few 'success' stories, sadly. User engagement at MS is very broken. That's quite possibly what they're saying. On the other hand, this is what I hear: "We don't care about bugs, ignored them anyway, and now we'll pretend there aren't any. If you want to go through this cycle again, and see the bugs ignored again, file them again. We dare you!" In other words, bugtracker bankruptcy is never nice, and the risk of discouraging users from filing bugs is significant. No, it's a totally wrong apporach. It's your work that you are paid for, and nobody is ought to make your work for free. Some manager received a bonus for closing so many bug reports. Wonder if he took the team out for pizza and beers. Downsized them, rather. Save money on wages too! This fits into the picture with the development culture that was hinted on in these irc chats: Many other large companies do that. Google did that with Android several times, and another poster mentions Apple does that too. it's interesting to see that Microsoft is actively adopting Jamie Zawinski's CATD model[0].
