Microsoft?s Evolving Approach to Servicing the Windows Platform

Microsoft today shared details on its plans for the first service pack of Windows Vista, including a timeline for its release. To learn more, PressPass spoke with Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President of the Windows Core Operating System division at Microsoft. PressPass: There has been a lot of speculation around the first service pack for Windows Vista. When will it ship, and why are you just now sharing information on Windows Vista SP1? DeVaan: We?re targeting the first quarter of 2008, but the exact date really depends on feedback we receive from testers and the work we put into making sure we understand the feedback we receive. We?re making a beta available to more than 10,000 people in the next few weeks ? that?s a critical step for us on the road to release, and we?re looking forward to the feedback we?ll get. As for the speculation, I think it?s the result of us erring on the side of being more careful about when we communicate release information. Based on what customers and partners have told us, we know that providing timely guidance on release plans is important, but that it?s equally important for us to provide more accurate guidance that they can be confident in as they build their own plans. For Windows Vista SP1, that?s meant waiting until we had a higher-level of certainty in our plan, including what was going into it and when we could reasonably expect to meet the quality bar, to share information broadly. Finding the right balance between communicating earlier and more often versus later and more precisely is something we?ll continue to refine by listening to our customers. PressPass: Isn?t that a long time between Windows Vista RTM (or ?gold code?) and the release of first service pack, at least compared with past versions of Windows? DeVaan: It will be a little longer than it was for Windows 2000 or Windows XP, but when you look at all the other methods we have outside of the service pack itself to service Windows, I think it?s fair to say that we?re actually getting fixes, improvements and updates into the hands of customers faster than ever before. In fact, the use of the term ?gold code? is somewhat of an anachronism in an environment where we have product feedback mechanisms available to us that help us continuously identify and diagnose real-world software issues and the update mechanisms in place to regularly deliver fixes for those issues to hundreds of millions of customers. We think like most major software projects, Windows Vista was designed to improve continuously from the time it is purchased. Let me give you a few examples of the different ways we service Windows today. For enterprise customers, we work closely with them, through our Premier Customer Service organization, on diagnosing and analyzing specific issues that arise during their deployments or use of Windows Vista. Then, as a result, we develop ?hot fixes? ? single downloads containing one or more files that address a very specific element of feedback ? and make them available through our managed support channels. For home users, we offer the Windows Update service, which customers can opt-into to receive the most significant updates, including security updates, as they become available. For OEMs and system builders, we have been working to deliver important updates to them that support issues discovered with new hardware, and already have delivered a number of important updates ? such as updated USB support ? which benefit new PCs based on new hardware. All of these updates also are designed to be included in the next available service pack. That means that Windows Vista SP1 will include all the product changes from all channels, in addition to other improvements. The upside here is that the overall Windows experience is consistently improving over time, and customers have a choice as to how to receive those improvements. Some customers will want to use the more efficient, incremental servicing mechanisms like Windows Update or, for enterprises, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), and others will prefer to get all fixes in a single service pack that can be rolled out in a managed deployment. It?s a matter of choice for the customer. PressPass: How do you know and decide what gets fixed for a service pack?DeVaan: We are constantly monitoring the quality of users? experience through Windows Vista?s built-in, automated feedback systems, such as the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) and Windows Error Reporting (WER). These are systems that customers anonymously and privately participate in via an explicit opt-in choice. Through the data we get back, we can identify, diagnose and then repair the most detrimental and prevalent problems users encounter. Our primary focus after launch became addressing ecosystem compatibility issues that the data showed had adversely impacted some users? Windows Vista experience. For example, when consumers see a ?Device Not Found? message or the systems report back that a device failed to install, we can prioritize getting the needed drivers available on Windows Update or up on the hardware vendor?s Web site. As a result, our driver coverage went from 1.4 million in January to more than 2.2 million today. We also work directly with our partners to improve overall driver quality. We are able to see which drivers are causing system crashes or contributing to hangs and other performance problems, and then work across the ecosystem to bring solutions to market via Windows Update.


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