Microsoft have become a faceless bureaucracy.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dissapointed
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Dissapointed

I have it seems tried in vain to submit a new spyware
report and fault report to MS, this failed with network
errors (for no obvious reasons).

Fully understanding that this is a beta product (and not
expecting ANY KIND of support) I sent a lengthy, detailed
and what I consider to be a helpful e-mail to Microsoft,
although I really had to fumble around the web to find an
e-mail address that looked like it might actually get to
someone.

I then get a robotic reply, from some automaton.

The e-mail said something like: "You have requested
support on a beta product, please note that Microsoft do
not..." etc.

This is what will be your downfall, when people really
begin to feel that you simply dont care, you dont provide
the means to interact with people, who can read and
intelligently understand the issue.

I was NOT seeking support, I actually did two things in
my e-mail:

1. Reported a weakness/bug in the network/comms features
that prevent me submitting a new spyware report.

2. Included a detailed XML scan file created by
AntiSypare and no doubt of great potential use to MS.

I did not expect a fix, support etc, and to assume this
is a major mistake, I am a very experienced software
designer/developer myself and fully understand the whole
beta - no support issue.

If this was my company or product, I would be FOCUSED
upon making it superb, the best, the leader in its class
and this would HINGE upon dealing with user feedbakc, no
matter how irksome it might be with many dumb users
flooding me.

Microsoft are becoming a faceless, big-brother entity,
the approach to dealing with customers and beta testers
is self defeating in the sense that the very methods you
use are actually limiting your ability to reach the goals.

I suspect that the real decision makers and the people
that make things happen are too "insulated" from the real
world by layers or formlity etc, that are filtering out
very useful and valuable feedback.

I have now downloaded AdAware and found it to be far
better, streets ahead in several ways.

In a similar manner the bug reporting feature provided by
MS (for example the one used to report bugs etc in VS
2005) is incredibly poor, possibly the worst I have ever
used with the exception of command line CVS tools.

It asks pointless questions, fails to ask vital ones and
forces the user to type text into 2 inch square edit
boxes, staggeringly amateurish.

How on earth to MS expect to produce superb quality tools
when your processes actually make it so difficult to
intercat with you, that many people somply are not
bothering you, thus depriving you of potentially very
valuable data.

Regards
Hugh
 
You are absolutely correct in your comments about
the 'bueaurarcy' we have to deal with. This new spyware
program is a joke ! It captured all my music files and
put them in quarantine under investigation and now they
connot be accesssed. I was told to leave the quarantine
window open and they should eventually re-appear after
several hours, which they did not.
I had partially backed up most of my files but not 100% so
I lost a bunch of music to this looser of a program they
have come up with.
They will not even respond to me anymore. What a great
place to work !

Regards,

Jim
 
Bill Sanderson:
The files in the quarantine folder are renamed--they still play, for
example. I'm told, by MP3 folks, that there are utilities that can rename
an MP3 file based on the content (i.e. back to the original song title,
perhaps.

[Restoring Quarantined Programs]
If you have accidentally quarantined a program, you can
remove it from quarantine and restore it to its original
state.

How to restore a quarantined item

1. From the main screen, or any of the screens with the
toolbar, click Spyware Scan (this is the product icon).

2.On the top right of the screen under the Take me to...
section, select Spyware Quarantine.

* Open your quarantine window and leave it open UNTIL the
contents appear, COULD BE HOURS, then you can restore
them.*


3. A list of all items in your quarantine is displayed.
Select the item you would like to un-quarantine and when
the item appears in the right details window, select Un-
quarantine Threat. This restores the item to its original
state before it was quarantined.

4. To un-quarantine multiple items in the quarantine,
select each item and click Un-quarantine All Checked
Threats at the bottom of the screen.

5. After you un-quarantine an item you should restart your
computer to make sure the restored application runs.

Windows AntiSpyware may prompt you to remove some peer-to-
peer (P2P) file sharing programs. If you choose to remove
such a program, Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware deletes the
entire contents of the Program Files directory that
relates to the P2P program. Because some P2P programs
store downloaded files in a default directory under
Program Files, this might remove all files downloaded
through the file-sharing program. For example, KaZaA
stores .exe and .dll files at C:\Program Files\Kazaa.
Downloaded files are stored at C:\Program Files\Kazaa\My
Shared Folder. If you use Windows AntiSpyware to remove
KaZaA, all files and folders under C:\Program Files\Kazaa
are removed. If you have installed any P2P file sharing
programs, we recommend that you make a backup copy of your
downloaded files before running Windows AntiSpyware.

--
Andre
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
FAQ for MS AntiSpy http://www.geocities.com/marfer_mvp/FAQ_MSantispy.htm
 
Andre;

You clearly have not read my original post!

Your suggestion to send in a report using the Tools menu
is great, except that it doesnt work, read my post again
if you want to.

I dont care a jot about the bext newsgroup acting
as "support", it isnt, its for Microsoft benefit and not
the customers, that is clear.

The fact that you havent read my original post proves my
point, we are all dealing with a mindless bureaucracy,
and this is not good for MS.

If I were running the beta spyware project, beleive me it
would be done a little differently, I wouldnt be pussy
footing about with this crud and annoying customers, many
of whom are very experienced and competent IT pros.

Customer dissatisfcation is very important, I mean it,
very important and people like me need to be taken
serioulsy.

I suggest someone chair an emergency meeting to identify
the major issues that customers are complaining about,
and I dont mean per-product team, I mean across the
board, are there common complaints across all products?

Yep, if so what? how many? etc etc.

It is STUNNING that MS have the worst bug reporting
system in existence AND are too "busy" to see the wood
for the trees.

Re-read my post, then tell me what to do about my
suspected spyware again.

H
 
Hi Hugh,

The Suspected Spyware Report feature sometimes just doesn't fire off very
well.
If you care to email your report at (e-mail address removed) , I'll forward it
into Microsoft for you.

Ron Chamberlin
MS-MVP
 
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