Developing Projects

Ever Wondered What It Took to Release Windows Vista?

Or other products at Microsoft?

By Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor

31st of May 2007, 16:17 GMT

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Have you ever wondered about the development process over at the Redmond Company? What it took so that Microsoft came up with Windows Vista? Well, that question remains unanswered for now; however, Bruce Evans, a Build Engineer at Microsoft has delivered an insight into the company's inner workings so to speak. According to Evans, Microsoft's first and foremost standard for products is quality.

"Microsoft builds "from-source" using timestamps in the source control system to ensure

they can re-build a product, in a known way. Products are not only compiled and linked, they are built several ways: release-quality, debug-quality, code-coverage, and up to 6 different ways to inform developers and testers that the code being shipped is of reasonable quality, and meets the legal requirements set by Microsoft," Evans revealed.

Microsoft has also set up automatic Build Verification Tests designed to indicate if localized and frequent builds of the products are up to standard. The final stage just brings with itself even more testing for the graphical user interface and the API areas. "The automated testing is designed to make sure that the maximum amount of code-paths are executed to ensure the highest ship quality possible. Not many companies invest the time it takes for developers to write test cases, but Microsoft does - it's a serious investment in product quality! Manual testing is happening all the time. Because testers are familiar with the product objectives, they catch lots of things that the automated tests don't," Evans stated.

The Test Leads, Development Leads, and Program Managers are all the groups that have to approve a product before it is shipped to end consumers. The most common reason for a shipping delay is the fact that the product fails to meet the necessary standards of quality. "Many products go through a "dogfood" phase prior to release - which means that the people inside Microsoft use the product just like customers and provide critical feedback to the development team. Before formal release to customers, Microsoft has a variety of programs in place to allow previews of upcoming releases so customers get a "front row seat" with the product - again, to ensure higher quality in the shipping product," Evans said.

TAGS:

Microsoft | development

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