I am sure this has been asked a milion times, but how do people get selected to join the beta tester pool? I signed up at msbeta but never heard anything back... I am just curious if someone can shed some light or if the NDA prohibits such discussion... thanks for reading.Take carejohn

People who are in the beta program are under an NDA which prevents them from talking about it.When you sign up you're (if Microsoft is smart) judged on your technical skills relating to software testing and the business domain of the software to be tested.If your skills match those needed you may be asked to take part.But remember that beta testing is NOT just playing around with an application, essentially just using it as you normally would except you get to see the new version before everyone else and don't have to pay for it.It's hard work, often tedious and boring. We've people sitting at work now betatesting a new release, and they're actually using stopwatches to time certain programs to see if they haven't gotten slower. If that means doing the exact same thing a hundred times in the old version, then a hundred times in the new version on the same machine, that's what they do.And they're doing that not to one screen, but to hundreds.They're following an exact script, and have to follow it to the letter.Takes a very special kind of mind to enjoy that and do it well, a kind of mind that's rare to say the least.

Thanks for the answer, I think most of us know what it takes to be a good beta tester.... RegardsJohn

I think most of us know what it takes>to be a good beta tester.... I would doubt that after beta testing a few products, not all fun and games.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/tfbeta.jpg

I agree. I don't think anyone who hasn't been involved in beta testing all, or a part, of a complex piece of software has any idea what's involved. DougEdited 'cause I can't spel

Speaking of Beta testing, anyone trying to download the public Vista Beta 2? It

I just wish I could get a connection to be dropped. Here's all I see now:"Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista Beta 2.We are currently experiencing a high level of demand and cannot process your request at this time.Please check back later for availability. We apologize for any inconvenience." I knew I shouldn't have gone to Disneyworld yesterday :-) .Doug

I've had it (got it via my MSDN account).Seems to work well. And no I did not run MSFS on it. Did not support my cheapo inkjet printer, but besides that did get everything else.

in my experience even most professionals in the software industry don't know, and very few outsiders have any clue at all of what's really involved.It's not for nothing there are specialist training curiculums lasting several weeks and costing thousands of Euros per student to prepare people for the job of a professional tester.Libraries have been filled with books about the techniques and methods to be used.

"It's not for nothing there are specialist training curiculums lasting several weeks and costing thousands of Euros per student to prepare people for the job of a professional tester.Libraries have been filled with books about the techniques and methods to be used."Right on the mark. Many now who are involved in testing must be familiar with rather sophisticated coding techniques as more and more software testing is automated. Mercury, Compuware, Rational, Radview--one has to be fluent with the tools these vendors offer in most shops to even be considered for a testing position. One has to be familiar with reading a software spec, understanding business rules in an often unfamiliar business line, and developing a meaningful and repeatable test script. With the addition of offshore resources, the scripts must be written in such a way that virtually anyone can execute it without having to be expert on the application being tested or the tools used for testing. I don't write any code, other than my freeware offerings for MSFS. But I write tens of thousands of lines of code a year in my profession, all of it in languages supported by the automated testing tools that are required to be competitive in my industry. Every year I spend 3-4 weeks going through training, either for these tools, or quality control programs such as Six Sigma, or Project Management classes and skills. Testing is as much part of development as the design and code itself. We teach our developers to code with testing in mind--no code comes into our test environment without our signoff on the unit testing practices used during development. On top of it all, most of us who test for a living must stay abreast of Network and workstation technology--if not at the MCSE level, fairly close to it. Since I moved out of network to development several years back, I am surprised by how much effort it takes to stay fluent in new hardware and OS's. I'd say most of the hardcore MSFS users here have passed me by in that department.-John

I think he was joking since that's not how beta testers are chosen. It's more like a random drawing. A good way to let us know you want to test is to send info to [email protected]. It's not a sure thing but at least lets us know who you are. In the future we hope to make things a bit easier.

I wasn't joking but rather explaining how professional beta testing works, what the skills required are.Consumer testing is of course another field, but there too I'd expect a certain amount of dedication and expertise to make sure the candidate will be a valuable asset to the team rather than just in for the free candy at the end of the program ;)

Just so other folks reading don't get confused, when we refer to "beta testers" we mean the people outside the company who participate on a volunteer basis. There are no "professional" beta testers, per se, since that implies a for-pay arrangement. We do have an internal team of "professional" testers, some of whom have formal training. Many, though, learned their trade on-the-job.

>I think most of us know what it takes to be a good beta tester.... Almost fell on the floor with that one. No insult intended.Let me relate a story.I owned a quality assurance testing company (the first in the video game industry) from 1983 to 1996. As you can imagine we were continually bombarded with applications for employment.One of the tests we would do for prospective new hires was typical of a day's work. We'd take the applicant into a room and sit them down in front of a PC. We'd tell them that a bug has been reported by a tester in a combat flight sim (very apropos). Seems that the product crashed when the tester flew off a carrier's flight deck and plunged into the ocean using a joystick. The goal for this applicant was to find the bug. They had to:1. Boot the system2. Launch the program (for much of the time it was Velocity's "Jet Fighter" program)3. Set up the joystick (which in those days that meant "centering it".4. Set up the scenario (load the mission, set the parameters, read the dialogs, get to the deck.5. Start up the plane and then fly off the deck and immediately crash into the ocean.6. No game crash? Repeat the process.We'd have them do this for 30 minutes. Most ended up calling the interviewer after about 10 minutes and saying the job wasn't for them. Applicants who made the 30 minutes were told that this case was an actual case and it took the lead tester 9 hours of repeating this process (with slight variation) to find the issue.Game testing is not about playing the game and seeing if something magically breaks. Real QA testing is a tedious, often boring, process. You get so absolutely sick of the product that you never want to see it again. My personal mark was Bethesda Softworks' "Wayne Gretzky Hockey". We tested over 400 versions of it before it was released. I also can pretty much recall all the music in the Psygnosis game "Lemmings" because I played it all the way through possibly 6-8 dozen times. I had it lucky.A good QA tester is a VERY hard thing to find. They have to have some pretty unique instincts that include having a knack for piecing together what is most likely a) cause a problem :( identify the cause of that problem, and so forth.

Thank you Sir. This was the information I was looking for.Best regards,John