Is there a way to report a reproducible bug?

[tlmurray]

It's rather minor (it's in the UI area) but it's a pain-in-the-wrist, and I'd
like to report it, but I'm NOT paying the $50 tech support fee! I have a
12-meg QuickTime movie posted at
http://homepage.mac.com/tlmurray/filechute/Word_Save-Bug-12MB.mov
if anyone is interested.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Jeez! No one is interested in watching a 12MB movie. I'm sure the movie
will be valuable additional documentation, but please type at least a
short description, and be sure you have provided EXACT version numbers
and EXACT steps to reproduce (exact steps like you were instructing a
blind grandmother who had never seen a computer to do it).

You can send a one-way message to MS via Help | Send Feedback in any
app. If it is a quality bug report (as noted above), it will get to the
right place, and you can include a link in that message.

You can also discuss a bug here, and one of the MVPs (helpful
volunteers, *not* MS employees) will usually forward it on if we can
reproduce it.

I'd advise using both methods, but you are unlikely to hear a response
from MS either way.

 

[Tim Murray]

Jeez! No one is interested in watching a 12MB movie. I'm sure the movie

will be valuable additional documentation, but please type at least a
short description, and be sure you have provided EXACT version numbers ...

I have removed 2008 and gone back to 2004, but it is in at least the latest
2008 as of 28 June.

The problem is this: If you "save as" and choose a file type using the
keyboard, the saved file type will remain the original. Leave the mouse alone
during this process!

For example, start with a .docx file. Choose Save As and select .doc using
the keyboard. The file type stays .docx.

 

[Tim Murray]

You can send a one-way message to MS via Help | Send Feedback in any
app. If it is a quality bug report (as noted above), it will get to the
right place, and you can include a link in that message.

Also, the reason I was asking about reporting is that I used to have a phone
number where I got a human straight-away. He would download my movies or
sample files, and then call me back via phone or send me an e-mail with news
in a few days, sometimes giving me a bug number, sometimes to say to live
with it. Once in a while things got escalated and I would get a callback from
an engineer. But I have not talked to him since the fall of 2006 and the
number is now someone else not even remotely involved in support, and my
buddy (apparently) no longer works for Microsoft. He didn't mind hearing from
me because I had a roughly 100 per cent true bug rate (versus human error,
etc.).

The current telephone numbers from the MS site seem to take you straight to
credit card processing. I would not mind giving it out so long as Microsoft
said if you report an honest bug there is no charge, but if you need our
help, we'll charge you. I guess I've felt that the on-line feedback was sort
of ignored, if not at least lost in the pile.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Tim:

buddy (apparently) no longer works for Microsoft.

I hope that wasn't because he kept taking customer phone calls when he
wasn't supposed to

Microsoft is a different place these days. Larger and more professional,
but also more compartmentalised and more difficult to access human beings
inside.

He didn't mind hearing from me because I had a roughly 100 per cent true bug

rate (versus human error, etc.).

If you're that good, I am sure the Mac BU would love to have you as a beta
tester Contact me off-list and I will find out if they are signing up
people for "Office Next" yet.

That will get you a phone number, all right. And the world's MOST
frustrating bug-tracking "system". I swear that Electronic Headless Chicken
we are forced to use has far more bugs than the software we are trying to
test. It certainly crashes more often!!

The current telephone numbers from the MS site seem to take you straight to
credit card processing. I would not mind giving it out so long as Microsoft
said if you report an honest bug there is no charge, but if you need our
help, we'll charge you.

Those *ARE* the rules. However, *I* wouldn't risk it, because their idea of
what is a bug is very narrowly defined. Most of what you and I would
consider to be a bug, they consider to be a "limitation", and for those,
they charge.

The rule of thumb is: It's free right up until the time the product has
installed and the splash screen appears. Right after that, it's chargeable,
no matter how badly the application "works".

I guess I've felt that the on-line feedback was sort
of ignored, if not at least lost in the pile.

That's no longer the case. The Help>Send Feedback that we keep recommending
is about the only one they DO listen to now. Telephone contact is pretty
much ignored, unless they get 1,000 reports a day of the same issue.

But the "Send Feedback" form fires directly into the internal bug tracking
database (bypassing the one the beta-testers have to use!!). As soon as
anything lands there, a real (and rather good-looking!!) human being checks
each report, deletes the rubbish, and tags up the rest for investigation by
the testers.

So: Send Feedback is the one that REALLY works, these days. Of course,
they NEVER respond to Send Feedback. It says so, right there on the web
page, see? But in my experience, if you find an "interesting" bug, you will
get the Tester, the Test Lead, maybe the Developer who wrote that bit, and
sometimes the Software Architect all descending on your inbox

"Unofficially", of course

Ping me off-line and I'll see if they're enrolling beta testers yet...

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I have removed 2008 and gone back to 2004, but it is in at least the latest
2008 as of 28 June.

The problem is this: If you "save as" and choose a file type using the
keyboard, the saved file type will remain the original. Leave the mouse alone
during this process!

Yeah, reproduced. You didn't say what OS? But I did it in 10.4.11 with
Word 12.1.0

For example, start with a .docx file. Choose Save As and select .doc using
the keyboard. The file type stays .docx.

You'd better write some more exact steps about how one uses the keyboard
to do this. Like I said, instructing your blind grandmother. Over the
phone. Or it gets bounced as "cannot reproduce."

Daiya

 

[Tim Murray]

I swear that Electronic Headless Chicken
we are

I don't usually actually LOL, but this time I did....

 

[Tim Murray]

You'd better write some more exact steps about how one uses the keyboard
to do this. Like I said, instructing your blind grandmother.

If my blind grandmother is doing this then she's using keyboard, not a mouse,
and she'll be pissed that Microsoft didn't follow Apple's UI published UI
specs and she can't change a docx to a doc.