It's a Beta or is it?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob Allen
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B

Bob Allen

Hi All:

Say Bill...(Sanderson)

This isn't really a beta in the true sense of the
word...didn't MS acquire this from Giant? Or is PCWorld
full of beans?

Warm regards, it's working great for me using XP SP2 Home
on a goosed up Athleon screamin' gamer.

Bob A
The Allens of Allentown, PA
 
Microsoft did acquire the basic technology from Giant. There are a fair
number of "issues" with the software however, and there are lots of details
which will change between the initial beta release and the final, I believe.

So--this is considered to be technology mature enough to get out to the
public to start getting machines clean, but it is also not, by Microsoft
standards, at a standard for release--partly because of a number of issues
like spelling/grammar, Accessibility, and localization--which are all
important to Microsoft and less well handled by smaller vendors often.
 
I wonder if the bugs we have found so far also existed in the Giant
version just before it was acquired by Microsoft?
 
That's an interesting question, and I don't know. Some significant work was
done on the product--there are some Giant pieces that are gone--the help
file references a wizard which sounds quite interesting and useful, and is
nowhere to be found, for example, and I think I saw some buttons in the
first day or two of the beta which I no longer can find--and cookie
scanning, for example, was yanked. So Microsoft made some changes deeper
than just re-branding, but I've no experience with Giant's product. And I
should reiterate that although some of what is posted here seems quite
glaring and easy to spot, more than 3 million folks have downloaded this
beta, and the vast majority of them aren't knocking on the doors here
demanding their money back (so to speak :) )
 
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