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I guess upgrade to Windows 10 is the message Microsoft is trying to get out here?

Laying off all those QA and testing people will have some downside - MS seems to be letting older versions take the hit.



Perhaps. However, Microsoft has published very clear guidance on how long previous versions of Windows would receive support for, specifically including the period for security updates. Doing what you're describing is effectively reneging on that deal, and that sends a very different kind of message.


Sure, I have a hard time believing MS would purposefully screw their Win 7/8 enterprise customers - but the issue at hand suggests it's at the very least a byproduct of their new strategy of focus on Win 10 and the decision to do with less QA/Testers by involving more end users to participate in testing. Thus Win 7 users end up with slower, less tested patches and no hardware support backports. To be fair only the less tested patches sound terrible.


That or switch to unix.

Bad coding on one product isn't exactly the most convincing strategy to get people to try a different product.


What sort of QA would be doing memory access tests? Most I've worked with can't even do automation scripts.


That’s like saying most developers are WordPress install monkeys. It may be locally true but it’s not globally so. Good QA people – and I’m sure Microsoft and similar major players have plenty of them – are just as skilled as the developers but working at different goals. In addition to security, they’ll be working on scalability, detailed correctness tests, fuzz testing and other automation techniques, etc.

If they can be replaced with a script, your employer has a management failure and is wasting a lot of money on short-term savings.




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