Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!yale!decvax!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hplsla!hpvcla!neff
From: neff@hpvcla.HP.COM (Dave Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: MSC 5.0 Bugs, Microsoft ``support''
Message-ID: <4030002@hpvcla.HP.COM>
Date: 8 Feb 88 20:52:21 GMT
References: <248@pyuxf.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Vancouver, WA
Lines: 35

I have no great love for Microsoft, but I have found their support to be
acceptable.  What is unacceptable is the quality of their software.  A company
as large as Microsoft should not be shipping products -- especially language
products -- with as many bugs as exist in these products.

From the support standpoint, I have sent in compiler bugs with the
various documentation and gotton phone calls acknowledging the bug,
letters including fixes to the bugs, and free compiler updates.
Of course they will not promise in advance to fix any or all bugs,
but would you make this promise if you were running your own
software company?  What the user perceives as a bug may not be
perceived as a bug to the programmer. On one extreme I have dealt
with a company that defines a bug as "anything that PREVENTS you
from accomplishing the task the software was designed to do." 
If its an annoying problem that slows you down, its not a bug!
This company was not even willing to concede that a program crash
was a bug -- as long as there was a workaround to the program crash (i.e.
don't do whatever caused the crash, accomplish the task with a different
combination of instructions, etc.)!

Once when I found a bug and the Microsoft technical support person said the
bug was known and their was a free compiler upgrade with the bug
fixed.  I then complained that I was never notified of the upgrade despite
being a registered owner (they ALWAYS notified me when there was a
not for free upgrade).  I wrote a letter to their customer support person.
Over the next year, I received in the mail no less than 10 copies of the
compiler (all the same version).  I kept expecting a dump truck to show
up one day and unload a truckload of compilers on my front lawn!!

I summary, I think Microsoft's customer support people do try hard, I
just think the quality of their products is very poor.  I wouldn't touch
OS/2 for at least a year after its release.


Dave Neff
ihnp4!hpfcla!hpvcla!neff