I am very familiar with the Microsoft test and development regime. Their development and testing is as good as any in the industry and includes a huge amount of 3rd party, independent testing (including Veritest). Most product groups have 2 testers for every developer. That's a ratio most software providers cannot get close to.
Windows and Office must survive in a mind boggling matrix of millions of combinations of software and hardware. It is impossible to test them all or to release complex software without bugs. To expect otherwise is living in dream land. Sorry, but that's the reality of humankinds ability to engineer software - which is the most complex thing, by far, that we do.
When parts of the W2K source code were leaked, there was wide spread surprise (although there shouldn't have been) about the quality which is generally classed as excellent and it's had 12 years to mature/improve. After all, Dave Cutler fathered it.
It's an industry problem, not Microsoft's.
Last edited by Simonta; 24th June 2010 at 19:53.