Support policy for Fast and Slow ring builds of Windows 10

[Jesse Houwing 0]

Dear Eset.

 

I've been one of the folks who's been caught by the download corruption bug in the most recent Windows 10 slow ring insider build. I understand that as a "beta" tester I'm in for a tough ride once in a while. But as a Microsoft consultant, running recent bits also provides me with a few options I do not have if I lag behind.

 

I suppose that you internally run tests against beta builds to be sure there are no breaking changes.

I also suppose that you're glad when people take the effort to use your product and provide feedback when a beta build breaks a feature or causes issues in another way.

I do not expect Eset to fix my beta build.

 

I'd like them to take into account that these preview builds aren't going away.

I'd like them to help me use their product whenever possible and to help me stay safe.

I'd like them to have a "Temporarily turn off until next preview build" or a warning feature to prevent me from corrupting half my file system, after the bug has been detected.

I'd love them for the product to disable itself and revert back to Windows Defender without having to uninstall/reinstall it.

 

Eset provides a beta program in which we can help them create a better product. I'd love them to support the beta program of Microsoft to help us stay safe while helping Microsoft to build a better product.

 

I do not believe that the Windows team will be able to provide a higher quality and stabler build without all of those Insider folks out there. I've logged my fair share of bugs and Microsoft does seem to appreciate our effort. It's too easy to say "They should deliver higher quality", in the fragmented and complex space of the PC nowadays. Even the vendor of my machine has trouble providing me with the right drivers, I do not expect Microsoft to be able to provide all PC configurations out there in the world with a 100% working environment without people testing Windows in a real world environment. And testing  without real-world situations, such as running Windows 10 with a security product like Eset, would cause much, much bigger problems if they'd release a service pack or hotfix to 100.000's of users causing download corruptions. Just saying.

 

I'd love to hear a full statement of what is supported, what isn't and how we can help and how we cannot. I'd also love Eset to acknowledge the fact that Preview builds are a thing now, and that keeping us secure is important too. I'd be willing to pay extra if that's what's needed.

[ken1943 22]

Years ago beta builds were not open to the masses. They used people that knew computers and could help a company work through early

problems. Then have open betas for some of us to test.

 

Now the "testers" are out in the wild complaining about problems that Microsoft created.

 

I am sure companies like Eset do have people working with the betas, but I don't like wasting my time reading your posts

about beta problems. There are MUCH MORE IMPORTANT PROBLEMS POSTED THAN YOURS.

 

In short I don't believe that companies like Eset should have to fix problems with Microsoft products that are put out before they WORK.

 

To paraphrase you 'I'd like them' to go away.

Edited December 5, 2016 by ken1943

[Jesse Houwing 0]

Thanks Ken, I hadn't expected any other answer from you. And there is a truth to yours, but that truth may lead me to switch to another company that does support my workflow. 

 

Years ago it took more than 5 years to build a new version of Windows. If Microsoft would wait until 2021 to release Windows 11, they'd be out of business. It's an unfortunate truth and it seems that Microsoft is learning fast, but making mistakes. I hope they keep learning from these mistakes and that the number of these mistakes will be less in the future.

 

I agree that there ae more important problems than most of mine, which is why I spend quite a bit of time to figure things out, test hypotheses and then report feedback. 

 

I don't believe that companies like Eset should fix the problems microsoft created. I'd still like them to keep my system secure and my files in one piece, or warn me when they can't. Or I'll be unfortunately forced to keep my system secure in another way. And I'd think that unfortunate, because Eset is providing a product I like in every other way and which I promote to others looking for fast and reliable security.

[ken1943 22]

From what I have been reading they are/have been trying to catch up, but these forums are not the place

to post a problem because of this, they should be by a direct ticket to support who are involved

with the situation.

 

The people on these forums are looking for support that has nothing to do with any BETA problems for

any programs.

They are here for REAL software problems that they encounter when using a program.

Edited December 5, 2016 by ken1943

[peteyt 394]

Thanks Ken, I hadn't expected any other answer from you. And there is a truth to yours, but that truth may lead me to switch to another company that does support my workflow. 

 

Years ago it took more than 5 years to build a new version of Windows. If Microsoft would wait until 2021 to release Windows 11, they'd be out of business. It's an unfortunate truth and it seems that Microsoft is learning fast, but making mistakes. I hope they keep learning from these mistakes and that the number of these mistakes will be less in the future.

 

I agree that there ae more important problems than most of mine, which is why I spend quite a bit of time to figure things out, test hypotheses and then report feedback. 

 

I don't believe that companies like Eset should fix the problems microsoft created. I'd still like them to keep my system secure and my files in one piece, or warn me when they can't. Or I'll be unfortunately forced to keep my system secure in another way. And I'd think that unfortunate, because Eset is providing a product I like in every other way and which I promote to others looking for fast and reliable security.

As I've mentioned on a few posts and even got some people apparently annoyed for repeatedly mentioning it, this is not an Eset problem. 

 

I could be wrong, but as far as I know, most security programs have limited or no support for windows 10 insider builds, with most sticking to the stable versions. I'm sure I read Build 14965 caused a lot of issues for multiple third party antivirus, and not just eset. You could move to a different security suite that might work on the current insider build only for it to break on the next one.

[Marcos 5,143]

We kindly ask you to refrain from personal attacks. Jesse didn't complain about ESET not fixing bugs in IP builds of Windows 10, it was rather other users in other topics who did.

By installing Insider Preview builds one must understand that Insider Preview builds are not final and as such there's a good chance they contain less or more severe bugs that may manifest with specific 3rd party software like it happened in the case of data corruption in downloaded files. In such case, ESET is not the vendor who should address the issue; it's a task for Microsoft who owns the source code of Windows and can make fixes in their code.

We welcome and highly appreciate any feedback, even regarding Insider Preview builds. Although we test them internally, we may not always discover possible issues and bugs introduced in newer IP builds. Based on the feedback we can investigate new issues and determine if they occur because of a bug in Windows or because something has substantially changed and we need to adapt to it.

[peteyt 394]

We kindly ask you to refrain from personal attacks. Jesse didn't complain about ESET not fixing bugs in IP builds of Windows 10, it was rather other users in other topics who did.

By installing Insider Preview builds one must understand that Insider Preview builds are not final and as such there's a good chance they contain less or more severe bugs that may manifest with specific 3rd party software like it happened in the case of data corruption in downloaded files. In such case, ESET is not the vendor who should address the issue; it's a task for Microsoft who owns the source code of Windows and can make fixes in their code.

We welcome and highly appreciate any feedback, even regarding Insider Preview builds. Although we test them internally, we may not always discover possible issues and bugs introduced in newer IP builds. Based on the feedback we can investigate new issues and determine if they occur because of a bug in Windows or because something has substantially changed and we need to adapt to it.

I hope my post didn't come as a personal attack. I'm all for people using the insider builds, Eset needs to know of any issues so they can fix them. However I am concerned about the amount of people who don't seem to know the risks of insider builds and due to this blame Eset or whatever software they are using.