Not your momma's beta test!

So the entire world and the wild dogs of Madagascar have been "beta testing" Windows 7 these few months just prior to its release. And some were excited since the 6519 days... While it is indeed giving the kind of positive feeling that has not been seen since the Windows 2000 days, some concerns remain (I didn't take the name of WinXP because it was NOT received so well and if your memory tells you otherwise, it is either fickle or to be blunt, you simply weren't as involved back then).

One of my concerns now are those small bugs which considerably derail the "Windows 7 user experience" and haven't been covered in the Release Candidate build - I shall explain about these in another post. The other concern is that "Send Feedback" link you see on every window's title bar in the beta currently. Clearly the purpose of "beta testing" is not just so you can gloat on online forums? What happened to actually giving input? Input which lets the teams in charge of the product know where you are having issues? Come on people, just posting online that this or that behaviour in the beta annoys you isn't enough, you need to let the right people know! Don't apply patches that take away the "Send Feedback" link, because it exists to serve you in the end. Don't disable the CEIP either, if you can help it. MS does seem to listen, proven by the Office 2007 release (which broke a lot of conventional thinking with its innovations - facilitated by user research and input provided by people since the Office 2003 days, about which toolbars are used the most and in what way, which buttons need changing, how simplification was needed, etc.). If you don't give input now, don't complain later about the OS. Don't worry about whether your feedback will only be a seconding of a known bug. How many reports have you sent thus far?

And errr....   this is getting to be a bit repetitive, but yes I'm back... again!