6 hours ago, neil0311 said:

I know some don’t want to hear it, but none of the updates has caused a problem for me.

I’m sure there has been some minor variation in performance or visuals, but nothing that’s been really noticeable to me.

So again…the people having problems aren’t the majority. They’re the folks who tinker, who tweak, who are using 3rd party or freeware scenery or aircraft, and they are very critical about things many of us don’t even notice. 

Is this really needed? Why always shift the focus on people instead of keeping it on MSFS?

To put things in perspective:

- people having problems aren't the majority: are you sure? And just in case, does that mean that if a programming error breaks a program the devs should only correct the bug if at least 50.01% of the users have serious problems with it? So if a certain version of Windows doesn't start for, say, 5% of the users, they should live with that because they are not the majority?

- I do not tinker, tweak, or use other stuff: no time for it. Here SU5 crashes on a vanilla version of MSFS. SU4 never crashed. Not once.

- I am critical about things I see. If you don't see them, does that mean that nobody should care? What is it, a Neilcentric universe? There is such a variety of different combinations of hardware/software around, that it is perfectly possible, and has already happened, that you will find a program working fine and the same will not even run on my PC.

Thank you

A.

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

It makes perfect sense.....but it is one reason (of many at the moment) why I will not be purchasing the product any time soon.

Your loss Christopher 😉

Pardon me but this discussion sounds a little surrealistic to me. If we have learned one thing from the alpha and update betas is that the issue is not the testing modalities  or testers qualification/dedication but that to respect its deadlines the MFS team releases versions  which they already know through the testers contain bugs. Thats life and no better beta testing will solve it.  It is a policy matter not an organizational one.
 

7 hours ago, neil0311 said:

That’s not the only issue. Much of the scenery is integrated with data from the Azure cloud. Weather is cloud based. Traffic data is cloud based.

And bugs do get fixed in updates, despite the negative drumbeat that would have you believe otherwise. 

What negative drumbeat? Who said that bugs will not be fixed in updates? 

Quite the contrary, what I (and many others) are asking is exactly to see the bugs fixed. And the product  to be restored in the visually great and stable state in which it was before SU5. Saying that it was visually great and stable is no negative drumbeat. It's a positive appreciation of what the devs can (and did) achieve.

We don't need another thread with personal attacks, do we?

A.

5 hours ago, overspeed3 said:

It's  just the same situation with Win 10 automatic updates, also by The Microsoft Corporation, BTW.  You can try to stop them from time to time but eventually you have grin and bear it, even though it may mess-up certain apps or features...  One update actually deleted about six short-cut icons from my Window 10 screen - I had a heck of a time trying to figure out which ones were deleted... 

It’s not just Microsoft. Apple, Google, and others have the exact same policies and update mechanics.

In fact, Microsoft was criticized years ago for not being more prescriptive. You can still pause updates for Windows 10 if you choose, but you may not be supported and eventually will have to update or apps may no longer be supported. 

4 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Pardon me but this discussion sounds a little surrealistic to me. If we have learned one thing from the alpha and update betas is that the issue is not the testing modalities  or testers qualification/dedication but that to respect its deadlines the MFS team releases versions  which they already know through the testers contain bugs. Thats life and no better beta testing will solve it.  It is a policy matter not an organizational one.
 

Dominique, I totally agree with that, but I see a danger there, maybe the only real danger in the evolution of this product. 

A.

7 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Pardon me but this discussion sounds a little surrealistic to me. If we have learned one thing from the alpha and update betas is that the issue is not the testing modalities  or testers qualification/dedication but that to respect its deadlines the MFS team releases versions  which they already know through the testers contain bugs. Thats life and no better beta testing will solve it.  It is a policy matter not an organizational one.
 

Yeah, but there have only really been two hard set, immovable deadlines - one was the release of the game last year in August 17, 2020.  The other immovable deadline was July 27, 2021 because of the X-Box release.  In the past, Asobo has pushed back their update if it wasn't an immovable deadline.  Moving forward, I don't see immovable deadlines like the release of MSFS for PC, or the release of MSFS for X-Box.

1 minute ago, neil0311 said:

It’s not just Microsoft. Apple, Google, and others have the exact same policies and update mechanics.

In fact, Microsoft was criticized years ago for not being more prescriptive. You can still pause updates for Windows 10 if you choose, but you may not be supported and eventually will have to update or apps may no longer be supported. 

Tbh, neither my iphone, ipad or macbook push a mandatory update on me. They are pressing and emphatic about the new version, yes, but I can go on weeks without updating. And about Windows, I have Win10 stuck on a 2019 version on my other PC, and it works happily.

MSFS is different because it relies heavily on data streaming, and if something changes in that flow, it is disruptive: nothing will work until you update. So I think a mandatory update is the only way to go.

A.

3 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Yeah, but there have only really been two hard set, immovable deadlines - one was the release of the game last year in August 17, 2020.  The other immovable deadline was July 27, 2021 because of the X-Box release.  In the past, Asobo has pushed back their update if it wasn't an immovable deadline.  Moving forward, I don't see immovable deadlines like the release of MSFS for PC, or the release of MSFS for X-Box.

That's what we should hope for. Absolutely.

A.

13 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Pardon me but this discussion sounds a little surrealistic to me. If we have learned one thing from the alpha and update betas is that the issue is not the testing modalities  or testers qualification/dedication but that to respect its deadlines the MFS team releases versions  which they already know through the testers contain bugs. Thats life and no better beta testing will solve it.  It is a policy matter not an organizational one.
 

Sorry, but this isn’t unique to Microsoft, to Asobo, or to any software release.

Every release of software contains bugs. Every release of software is released with the knowledge that it contains bugs. Every release of software is a balancing act between acceptable quality, release date, and money.

The old developer’s triangle. You can have it fast, cheap, or done perfectly. You can only have two…you pick. 

2 minutes ago, neil0311 said:

Sorry, but this isn’t unique to Microsoft, to Asobo, or to any software release.

Every release of software contains bugs. Every release of software is released with the knowledge that it contains bugs. Every release of software is a balancing act between acceptable quality, release date, and money.

The old developer’s triangle. You can have it fast, cheap, or done perfectly. You can only have two…you pick. 

In fact, if software didn’t contain bugs at release, we’d never have updates, patches, and service packs. We do for all software.

How many iOS releases are perfect? They’re up against a hard deadline for the next iPhone release, and they make choices. We’ve seen charging issues and other problems from Apple. It’s just the way it works.

1 minute ago, neil0311 said:

Sorry, but this isn’t unique to Microsoft, to Asobo, or to any software release.

Every release of software contains bugs. Every release of software is released with the knowledge that it contains bugs. Every release of software is a balancing act between acceptable quality, release date, and money.

The old developer’s triangle. You can have it fast, cheap, or done perfectly. You can only have two…you pick. 

True. Every release contains bugs, and they fall in two categories:

- unknown bugs

- known bugs

Unknown bugs, that are introduced with new features, can be spotted if your beta testing and QA process is accurate, but sometimes they can sneak and show up at the final user's. Undesirable, but it happens.

What I find annoying is that a mandatory update is pushed with known, serious bugs. Some of them, critical (program won't start or random ctds happen)

That's all.

A.

43 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Your loss Christopher 😉

When one of the major reasons is "I have no interest in flight simulation at the current time", I suspect that it is not quite as great a loss as you may imagine

 I never said it was MS only but it happens to be that we are on a forum dedicated to a MS product, aren't we ? And the bad habits of some are never an excuse for yours.

That being said, when we see the psychodrama after each P3D release including HF, I do not think that it is indeed  in no way different. I may add that I was not a developer but I and the peopel I know had deadlines too to respect and the "product" was not always up to what we wanted it to be. Life.

Immovable or not, I don't know, but I strongly suspect that there are financial incentives to respect a timeline for all the updates.  As  said in another post by Jean-Luc, the goal is to keep the interest up. To a point though. Dangerous game. I think that the fast response to the bad raucous which welcomed SU5 landing, showed  they were truly alarmed as in at the same time they were trying to widely expand their market with the Xbox version.  

15 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

 I never said it was MS only but it happens to be that we are on a forum dedicated to a MS product, aren't we ? And the bad habits of some are never an excuse for yours.

My specific point is that it’s not an anomaly. It’s by design. And not unique.

So folks can moan all they want, but it’s how applications and operating systems are professionally developed. There has to be a milestone where you cutoff bug fixes and features and fork to the next branch, and release.

They know mostly what bugs will be in the software weeks before release. That’s why “known issues” sections exist in the release notes. The trick is not to have showstoppers. When that happens, it’s usually not by design.