14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is looking to provide incentives for testers to turn in bugs for its next generation of Windows Embedded operating system, now in CTP phase. At the beginning of this month the Windows Embedded Standard Community Technology Preview was made available for download via Microsoft Connect. A week later, the Bug Contest for Windows Embedded Standard CTP is live offering Beta participants a chance to win digital photo frames as a reward for reporting bugs. The bug contest is scheduled to last one month.
"There will be 12 digital photo frames given away to the winners of the challenge. You have until July 3rd to download the CTP and report any bugs you find through the Feedback forms available on the Connect site. Twelve winners will be selected based on submitting the most unique and useful feedback", revealed Shayna Begun, Program Manager in the Vertical Industry and Embedded Windows (VIEW) team.
Windows Embedded Standard is the successor of Windows XP Embedded, and the CTP is simply just a stage in the road to the final version planned for the second half of 2008. Given the short development period available to the company, the CTP phase will be as short as possible. In this context Microsoft is hunting for as many bugs as possible in a small amount of time and in a variety of categories.
In addition to generalized functionality bugs, the company wants feedback on issues related to "Black Hole" Router Detection, Network Access Protection, installation, Kernel-Mode Driver Framework, System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Sysprep, Silverlight, Terminal Server Client with RDP version 6.1, the Windows Imaging Component, the Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack and Embedded Enabling features.
"To help you in your testing, we have created a list of new and/or updated scenarios that are enabled using Windows Embedded Standard. We encourage you to deploy these scenarios in your environment and submit any and all feedback using the Feedback forms that are available on the site. If you have any questions please post a thread on the Windows Embedded Standard MSDN forum. The product team will be monitoring the forum and responding as quickly as possible", Begun revealed.