I can give a pretty interesting perspective on the Windows 7 leak, considering said perspective is coming from someone who has had this build for 3+ months as of the writing of this post.
Before I really jump in, I should explain why leaks of this magnitude are bad. Believe it or not, these leaks do hurt Microsoft and the dev process of the operating system, especially this early in the cycle. When a leak happens, Microsoft has to devote time to investigating the leak and trying to pin down a source, ultimately the internal source or OEM who leaked it. Leaks are also bad because there are just some things that aren’t ready to be seen outside of Redmond yet, especially by the average Joe user. Say a build leaks, and average Joe doesn’t like a certain feature, or even more realistic, finds a real nasty bug. He blogs about that and next thing you know everyone is jumping on the slingfest bandwagon and presto, bad image before the product is even out of the gate.
The main thing about the 6519 leak that gets me is the fact that it leaked after so much time. I can only assume that it came from someone in the group that got the build about a month ago, and for some reason was looking for a “15 minutes of fame” moment. There is, however, a silver lining to all of this. The build is hard coded to expire on June 6th, after which date the activation system will lock you out of the system. Why someone would leak after expiration, you ask? Well it’s actually a pretty simple answer. They get their little moment of fame and (they think) cause little damage to Microsoft since Joe user can’t use it on a daily basis. The fact is though, the beta community is rather unique, we take builds of OS’s and actually use them on our machines to tinker with and see the direction that Microsoft is going with the future of Windows. With 6519, running on the current date is now impossible, but the OS can be used if you set the date back before expiration, which some will probably be willing to do, just for bragging rights.
I guess the point I am trying to make with all of this is 6519 never should have been leaked, but it is the unfortunate fact that we have some people in this community that just can’t seem to keep anything under wraps and thinks that leaking a build will gain them some kind of celebrity status. That could not be more inaccurate. Within the last few years leakers have been looked upon as the black sheep in the community, for the exact reasons that I mentioned earlier. The fact is that these people will never learn, and will likely continue to do things like this.
Follow Bryant on Twitter! 
[quote] The fact is that these people will never learn, and will likely continue to do things like this. I say, enjoy your pointless leaks of expired builds while I sit here and laugh at all of you
. [/quote]
Bugs me too, so i will laugh with you
Yeah, they will never learn. The sad thing is that they can’t be patient just a little while. I mean, a build will likely come out at PDC for crying out loud. What is hard about waiting for that?
“Believe it or not, these leaks do hurt Microsoft and the dev process of the operating system, especially this early in the cycle. When a leak happens, Microsoft has to devote time to investigating the leak and trying to pin down a source, ultimately the internal source or OEM who leaked it.”
Believe it or not, they probably have another department to deal with this. They don’t turn developers in to Sherlock Holmes to find the leak. Likely no direct impact on development time.
“Leaks are also bad because there are just some things that aren’t ready to be seen outside of Redmond yet, especially by the average Joe user. Say a build leaks, and average Joe doesn’t like a certain feature, or even more realistic, finds a real nasty bug. He blogs about that and next thing you know everyone is jumping on the slingfest bandwagon and presto, bad image before the product is even out of the gate.”
That’s Microsoft’s problem. I’m not a shareholder, I don’t care if their image suffers. Why do people with no vested interest in Microsoft’s position in the industry give a damn? Microsoft should make sure leaks don’t happen. If they don’t, tough shit. They suffer. I’d be appalled if the press held back on exposing a scandal because it might hurt the government’s reputation. If there are unpopular features coming in Windows, I want to know, and let the feedback get to them whilst there’s still time to change it. Besides, it may influence my buying decisions if the next version of Windows automatically DRM-protects your personal photos or whatever (just an example).
“I guess the point I am trying to make with all of this is 6519 never should have been leaked, but it is the unfortunate fact that we have some people in this community that just can’t seem to keep anything under wraps and thinks that leaking a build will gain them some kind of celebrity status.”
Oh boo-hoo. Don’t be such a hypocrite – you want your fame as well. And where’s the fame is nobody knows you have unreleased builds? Otherwise, you wouldn’t describe yourself as “someone who has had this build for 3+ months”. You’re bragging, so your crying about how this should “never have happened” means precisely d*ck.
Karl Karl Karl, where do I start with you?
Ok lets take your points one at a time. Does Microsoft have a seperate team to investigate leaks? Yes, they do, but the physical investigation can halt development in a certain lab while they make sure noone from that lab is their leaker, trust me on this, my info is good.
Second, you may not give a damn, as you put it, about a leak hurting an OS’s image, but some of us do because we’re tired of hearing the whining and bitching about Vista and the LAST thing we want is people jumping on the wahhmbulance when it comes to 7.
Ok now the third point, and this is where I may seem a little nasty. First off, yes I have had the build 3+ months, but apparently I knew how to keep my fucking mouth shut about it, I didn’t go sharing it with everyone and their mother like some people seem to. It wasn’t a matter of bragging and I really could not give two shits about the celebrity status. If thats what I wanted I would have plastered screenshots all over the web when I first got the build, but I didn’t. I chose to stay quiet and enjoy what I was given, so your anger is a little mis-directed there buddy. I suggest you start blasting the people who DID post screenshots months ago and the people who leaked the build. I’m not the enemy in this and I’m just giving my perspective. Don’t like it? Don’t read it. Period.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.
I’m just tired of the OS-bashing and how the cycle keeps on going, but this is much more tame than the elitism behind covering news.
Commenting re-enabled, let’s try to keep it civil this time
Karl i honestly thought you had more professionalism than that. Chris is true in every aspect. Its utterly shameful to know that these losers only want to either get an exclusive or simply brag that they have it. Leaking hurts MS period, they can now pinpoint who,how, and when the leak happened to sit there and say ‘oh boo hoo’ is pretty pathetic from someone who’s suppose to be respected here. He isnt the only one who had that build before it got out…..
Hell i had 3 monthes ago as well so we both have every right to be equally mad at the retards that leaked this build
BSOD: I had another comment, but it was deleted. I used to think Chris was alright, but then he comes out with this rubbish.
Fact is that the arrogance of some members who have unleaked builds fuels the ’scene’. Coming out with things like this after a leak creates a cult of mystery. We’re a community site: what we know, we share.
I don’t think you guys even realise you’re doing it. With one breath you can slam people who want to ‘brag’ that they have a build, when they share it so everybody does. With the next breath, you go on to brag yourself that you’ve had the build for ages. If you guys want this scene to end (and, frankly, it’s become a tiring subject for everyone else here), you can change the way you behave on the forums. Because you only make it worse.
Chris123NT – Dude! When you talk about leaks how can you forget yourself when you were part of a grp called BetasIRC. How you actually went ahead and leaked a build of Longhorn which was given by them to you to fix it. You like a smart ass went ahead and leaked it to your own private group of fags.
You should be the last one to post such kind of things.
@Prince:
“When you talk about leaks how can you forget yourself when you were part of a grp called BetasIRC.”
Wrong Chris.
Karl, sorry this posting changed your opinion about me but if you really are that sensitive to a person’s content then you seriously need to go outside and see the world.
Prince – First off, I never held any status in BetasIRC. The build was given to me to get working, and was given to others as well. It was proven that I was not the leaker, hell, even Microsoft admitted that it wasn’t me! So get your facts straight before you try to blast me over something.
Bryant, thanks for the stick-up
.
Try to do something good and they shove your face in the mud. Prince lol , regardless if chris was in that IRC channel…you were too…being a lil hypocritical are we?
Well, I’m kind of glad I turned commenting back on. Really gives me a perspective on the people who stand behind me and the ones who slander me because I won’t leak everything that lands on my plate.
Keep the comments rolling, really. I’m enjoying this.
BSOD ~ I am not being a hypocrite. I would be one if i was the one making this post.
Bryant – and what is your point ? I never said i wasn’t one or never took chances in leaking stuff. Hell! I have been there from Xbetas days and i am still a part of Birc. Its kiddies like these who basically enjoy having un-released build and then showing it off heh.
Chris – We all know what happened. Hell i still have a screenshot when you were sharing the build through ur domain/hosting heh.
Next time try not being a hypocrite, seriously its useless.
I really don’t think anything of the ’scene”. I also have had the build for about 3 months. It’s not anything about “I have it and you don’t”. It’s about being an enthusiast and enjoying getting a chance to see where the operating system of the future is heading.
I personally think this should never have gotten as far as it has. Instead, I ask everyone here to stop and think, who really cares? If I don’t get another build, will I cease to exist? Don’t think so.
Chris, I enjoyed your post. Keep it up!
Karl, sorry that Chris’s post got you fired up. Just don’t understand why his post affected you the way it did. But, as long as we keep going in this direction, we should have no problem understanding why AXP will continued to be limited in how far it will go.
Rob
Just to clarify, this post is in NO way sucking up to Microsoft. I am just expressing my own opinion, and if some people think I sound elitist because of it well then tough.
I really couldn’t care less what Microsoft thinks about content. I have come to realize that sucking up to Microsoft will get you NOWHERE. No matter how much you suck up they will just laugh you off if you ask for something in return for all your help. Oh you want access to this? HAHAHAHAHA. So people like me go elsewhere. Is that my fault? No.
Oh come on guys, doesn’t the world has better problems then your guys broken ego?
Why cant we agree to this 2 words for now -> Shit happens ?
Truth is 6519 WASN’T suppose to get out and unfortunately as much as you guys want to claim its his ego it does stunt the growth of the Windows development because they actually do pursue these things internally. Sadly Karl was out of line and very immature and everyone wants to blast Chris for posting his opinion. If you’re too worried about hurting peoples feelings then don’t post it. There’s too many people that float around here with gigantic egos and big heads and that’s exactly why this place is as stale as a loaf of bread and not really growing. People don’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of Elite and cocky wanna be know-it-alls.
I have to agree with the later one BSOD, but it’s somehow like >preaching water, while drinking whine<…
I can’t imagine that this is a thing we’ll be able to change in near future.
You know what, i am kinda sorry if i was rude to anyone in anyway. The real reason is, Microsoft sucks. I was a beta tester from such a long time like over 8 years but in the end Microsoft just keeps on sucking and i feel in a way that most of us have wasted time in them. Lets face it, Microsoft doesn’t give a damn about us and all those guys working laugh at us as Chris pointed out.
Again my apologies to all members
~Prince
Then i have but one question… what are we doing here then. We stick around cause its a passion and we like what we do. Regardless if they ’suck’ or kick ass. Maybe Microsoft would have more faith in its testers if they didn’t have the entire ’scene’ and leakers to worry about….
Who gives a shit?
Microsoft = FAIL – no matter what happens, or what Microsoft do.
The end result will be shit.
Chris,
At first I was thinking that I disagreed with the post’s ‘critical’ emotion behind it. But once I read what you were saying in a comment about all the Vista bashing it helped to hit a nerve. I love competition and all, hell my Zunes were the product of that. I think that if people and the media’s view’s weren’t so negatively skewed on the… well Microsoft, you probably wouldn’t have the same opinion. For myself that is the case. I remember XP and the bashing and I could care less, I used a Mac for design work and a PC for development and everything else. I had a spare hard drive loaded with 98 just for games for months and months. Vista, on the other hand, I used in production sense the first beta 1 release. I remember slight irritation from the misconception out in the wild but it was no real big deal. (The moment Server 2008 rtw’d I changed. It actually runs games better than Vista although a true driver from NVidia would be nice). Anyway, I started feeling actual anger after the first few funny Mac/PC commercials turned into a a tv series of lies. Then I’m constantly the point man for everyone I know to ask the details about what they saw on tv. Then you have larger stories from NYT’s talking about things like Zune and literally taking their positive features and talking about them as if they are flaws! Even today I have heard stories from friends and family who try to purchase a Zune and people at BestBuy, CircuitCity and even GameStop telling people that they wouldn’t do them harm by selling them a Zune! Walmart was the one store that tended to actually talk about what a person needed and didn’t have a problem selling it (Whole other story). Anyway, has become a great anoyance at this point. As a developer who works on the .NET framework, it affects me greatly. I have to work around an even larger variaty of platforms all the while listening to how every attempt MS tries at working torwards interop between open source systems, etc, listed as some huge corporate scandal.
I remember hearing everywhere online plus from family members who probably just use email about the Vista voice command ‘problem’ when it was first released. It was insain, here is a story that a website could delete all your files or whatever if they played clear text words using the voice commands in Vista. Not a mention that you have to enable it, TRAIN IT TO YOUR VOICE and have your speakers setup so that your mic will properly read them. No mention that this is just how voice command works. That’s similar to bashing wireless routers because few people were requiring passwords… And now, I read one article about how the Safari browser is this huge problem from info at the security developer conference (or whatever it was). Vista failed only when 3rd party software was introduced (Adobe Flash & Sun Java). Oh and that little thing about Linux. Can’t seem to find an article on it now even though it really seemed like huge news. The developers at Debian commented out a line of code that has to do with 128bit encription and for the past… shit, 2-4 years (I forget), has really only been 10bit. Nothing on that. But Vista’s ignorance unbelievable voice command bug/problem got primetime coverage for months…
So you know what, Karl, go fuck yourself!
And Prince you can go join him. People grow, learn and change their minds because of what they learned. If you hold everyone to shit that they used to say you might as well be one of my highschool girlfriends.
Finally, in ECO 101 they talk a lot about competition. There is a key word that is being left out on competition topics of MS vs [Insert Compeditor Here], that is the word fair. Fair Competition is what makes great products. Using dirty techniques might seem cool if you are using the ‘underdogs’ products, or if you are a child, or if your drunk
, but they are ultimatly bad for you the consumer and consumers of the other product. This creates a very similar situation to what we avoid by making monopoly’s illegal.
wow. a whole bunch of people making a lot of noise about something that doesnt even exsist anymore. 6519 is blue pill, the real build, red pill is not available to anyone except a select few. so leak it all you want, scream and moan and cry and call each other names and generally be a sorry bunch of people, it does not matter.
We here at Microsoft(verified as not being a Microsoft employee.) new there would be leaks, and took steps to ensure that anything that got out would be minimal, and that each departments builds are seperate, and only they are seeing what they make. Only about 10 people on the whole campus have any idea what red pill looks like, what all the real features will be when it goes beta.its like watching a bunch of teenagers in a locker room in here, all mouth no brains. what ever happened to respectability in this country? did Osama take that from us too? you think the guys that worked at Nasa during the space program would have posted comments for the whole world to see with even one letter of profanity? what you write onhere will last forever, be recorded and stored in the human knowledge bank for all time, and the best you can come up with is “shit” and “fags?”
Microsoft is a giant, a monster, and failure is not about to happen. there are over 30,000 employees here in redmond alone, do you think a company that huge can ever fail? Microsoft will either make it buy it or crush it, and there is nothing anyone will ever do to get in the way of that. Computers are a way of life, and unfortunately you cant do anything with them with out an OS, and the OS of choice for 95% of all computers is Microsoft Windows. Linux? never happen. ever hear the term you get what you pay for? well 606 said Microsoft = FAIL, maybe if you put down the bong and look at the financial news, you would have seen a little story about Microsoft getting turned down a $46,000,000,000 offer for yahoo.com. meaning they had that much to spend. meaning they are far from failure. when you hear about chapter 11 proceedings, then you come back and tell us you were right. until then get bent.
One thing for sure, Longhorn was in Preview so long, it seemed well known item. Then it turns out Vista wasn’t even Longhorn & that NOBODY Knew that Ultimate was NT6 until its actual release.
My Point, Nobody Knows except team making product, all others are feeding off US newbies.
Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.
Howdy, Microsoft employee here. I’m in Windows Live, not Windows, and I’m not any kind of official spokesman. Having said that:
Personally I have no opinion about leaked builds. Microsoft’s position, of course, is that there shouldn’t be any.
Chris – I reckon you’re right, sucking up isn’t going to get you any special Microsoft access. Its not malicious, though – we just want to keep our jobs.
Prince – sorry you’ve had a bad experience with Microsoft. While I doubt it was malicious or mocking, I respect your right to avoid any beta program or product that gives you a bad time.
606 – did you accidently misplace a comment you intended for slashdot? *grin*
Tomthum74 – while I appreciate the support, I have to say that Microsoft’s 30000+ employees are all ultimately on much smaller product or feature teams, none of whom think that they cannot fail. At least, I hope not.
Just an update, since I figured it might be necessary now that I’ve checked a few things:
1) Tomthum74 is not a Microsoft employee.
2) Bruce, however, is.
I guess the difference in comment maturity would’ve been a big giveaway, but I checked just in case.
Until Microsoft throw away every single piece of code they currently have regarding Windows, and start again completely fresh – their products will always be shit.
It dissapoints me that so many people are happy with such mediocre products – especially given MS’s staggering resources.
nice to see you back Bruce, but given the circumstances which bring you around again (this post) i guess not so much…
I hate to comment on a two-month old post, but reading through the post and comments I must say I am flabbergasted. With all respect to the author, I cannot imagine how one would be able to convincingly defend the argument posed above.
- leaked builds are not installed by Average Joe users. It may be disappointing to realize that the only people interested in trying out alpha build OSes are committed enthusiasts. Following from this,
- negative attitudes towards Vista were not formed during the alpha/beta phase. Quite the opposite: a lot of excitement was generated around leaked builds. Negativity really solidified through some bad early press, Apple’s marketing, and most importantly MS’s seeming inability to respond to these challenges in any coherent manner. ‘Mojave’ is at least a year late.
- builds should not be leaked, yet the author (who is not on the Windows team) had a copy of build in question. So leaks are OK if the author gets a copy, but not if other Windows enthusiasts get a similar opportunity to explore.
I could not agree more with Karl’s statement that stopping leaks is Microsoft’s responsibility. One fruity competitor is so adept at controlling information that the lack of leaks is a central component of their marketing strategies. Why can’t Microsoft, with it’s hierarchical org chart and mountains of cash, achieve the same results? It seems almost nonsensical that a blog post like this would imply otherwise, as if Microsoft is somehow ‘different’ to all other corporations and institutions and deserves some kind of special treatment from the community.
Again, apologies for the very late comment. I felt compelled to post, particularly after realizing that a great asset to this community had left due to comments made above.
Commenting late is never a problem. Posts here will be slow due to the nature of the content.