I was very happy the day I got my beta-tester invitation for Windows 7 from Microsoft.  I’ll be busy writing my new Power Users Guide in the coming weeks.  In addition I’ll be feeding back the best and most useful features here in a new ‘Windows 7 Feature Focus’ series, so you’ll get the latest and, hopefully, most useful information that’ll help you make an informed choice about your own future with Windows.

I wanted to start by writing a bit about the beta itself though.  In the last few weeks I’ve read a considerable number of blog and forum posts from people who were on the Windows Vista beta but who have been excluded this time around.  Then I got a couple of emails, one being from a senior programmer at Intel asking if I’d received my invitation, and who’s leg I’d had to chew off to get it.

Why all the hype and grumbling about this beta program?  After all, the average reader of this blog is probably still merrily using Windows XP and has a computer that’s several years old now but that still does everything that they need.

So, a short history lesson.  Most people know that Windows Vista was late, very late.  So late in fact that people just got used to XP as part of the furniture.  The beta for Vista was also plagued with problems and features were dropped every other week in order to get the product out the door.  Soon after it finally shipped there were some changes at Microsoft, chief among these was the appointment of Steven Sinofsky as the new head of the Windows division.  Sinofsky had previously run the Office section and had a reputation for getting products delivered on schedule.  Worse for the testers though, he was notoriously secretive.

This showed relatively early on.  Microsoft had been haemorrhaging details about Vista so that every time a feature got dropped, or a deadline got missed the press had a field day.  With Windows 7 came an eerie silence.  The next big difference would be in the beta.  Vista had an enourmous number of bets-testers, more than any other Microsoft product before it, even my mother was accepted as a tester.  Everyone knew that the Windows 7 beta would be much smaller, with only about 10% of the number of testers they had the last time round.

Will this make a difference?  The early builds of Windows Vista were highly unstable.  I remember not being able to use some of these builds for more than ten minutes before giving up and going back to XP.  The first builds of Windows 7 are much more stable, this is because they’re essentially an upgrade of Vista whereas the betas of Vista were something new.  It stands to reason then that there’ll be far fewer bugs to find and thus fewer testers needed.

So where does this leave people like myself and my new friend at Intel?  I’m considering myself extremely lucky that I was accepted onto the beta at all, given that I could see what was coming.  My friend at Intel will have to wait for the public beta, which will follow shortly after the official one.

‘So what’s the problem there?’ I hear you cry, he’ll get the beta and everyone will be happy.  Unfortunately it’s not just about getting the beta.  Only the testers will be able to feed back to Microsoft and affect real change within the operating system.  This is important, not only to experienced testers but also to Microsoft and the end user.  These are the people who really can spot all the little foibles that Windows 7 could be criticised for afterwards.

So was Steven Sinofsky being harsh for just having a limited beta?  Frankly I think he was.  Having many more experienced beta-testers could only have been a good thing.  I was probably chosen because Microsoft looked at how many bugs and feature suggestions I had submitted during the Windows Vista beta.  I was probably just a tiny bit above others who, while they had submitted excellent feedback last time, are all feeling a little bit snubbed for it now.