The Art of Honest Communication
20279 is a very exciting build, isn’t it? Who knew Microsoft could release 2 builds so fast after each other?! With 4 days in between 20277 and 20279 it certainly was fast. And that was its purpose. Right?
This build is largely the same as Build 20277, but we wanted to test our ability to quickly follow-up a flight with another flight.
At least, Microsoft did announce it as such. But that’s a lie, or at the very least, it isn’t the whole truth. No, if you *really* wanted to know why 20279 followed up on 20277 as fast as it did, you’ll have to turn to Zac Bowden on Windows Central, or other journalists who rightfully pointed out how ridiculous this statement is. But… that’s not how this is supposed to work now, is it?
The entire premise of a preview program is to get a peek behind the curtain, to learn what is next. But not Windows Insiders. Let me give you an example of a good preview program:
The Edge team keep a public feedback roadmap up every week (this is always the same link that redirect to a different forum post each week) indicating what feedback they are working on as well as what has been addressed in the current week’s build, and has it updated the moment a new Dev Channel build for Edge is released as well as having a clearly written weekly release notes post on their forums. You have questions? Often you’ll receive a proper answer in the comments below the release notes. And none of them will be sarcastic, or denying reality for that matter.
But Windows? Not so much.
Insiders and news sites are often faster in reporting on new builds than WIP themselves. The blogposts Windows Insiders get are often filled with release notes for apps that aren’t part of these builds for features that rolled out in the week or even weeks before it. The WIP team clutters these blogposts with information (probably to give the impression that things are changing), but removing all the cruft from them will often leave you with a list of fixed and known issues (and there would be nothing wrong with that, but the WIP team seems to think otherwise). With a little bit of luck, Microsoft will also updated their Flight Hub with the new build within the next day or 2 (as of this writing, 20279 isn’t listed here).
And then you get the things that I’ve quoted above. For the few of you who are unaware of why 20277 and 20279 flighted so quickly after each other; 20279 is an RTM build. As far as we know it may not be final final just yet (think situations like 17033), but it very likely is the end of the line for the Iron development cycle. Now, 20279 won’t ship for desktop — which will be a first — but it will ship for 10X and Server 2021. That is the reason Microsoft flighted this build, because after it nothing else will come. There is no point in waiting for, say 20282, because it will never exist. The future is to the 21xxx-line of Cobalt-builds (and the Dev Channel will probably move over in its entirety soon).
But here’s the thing. We know 10X exists, they announced it. We’ve seen 10X. We know 10X’s focus has shifted from foldable screens to clamshells, they announced it. None of this is secret. So… why not just be open about this? Why not tell us? Why not say “this is the last build for this branch before we move everyone over to the next and that’s why we’re flighting it now”?
The fact that this community has to turn to Zac Bowden and other journalists that cover these subjects should be a red flag for the WIP team at Microsoft.
“Hey, why do the people we told were on the forefront of what’s next for Windows keep having to learn about all this from journalists rather than from us?”
That’s the question the WIP team should be asking itself. But they’re not. They’re just not. And we know that. Because this isn’t the first time this has happened. And neither will it be the last. This post won’t change that, and the people pointing out this “incident” won’t change it either. How do I know that? Because it has happened before. Multiple times.
They weren’t open about what the plan was for 19H2 and 20H2 (note that to this date, nothing has changed according to Microsoft about Windows’ release schedule since 2017 when we got 2 major updates each year, but obviously, things have changed). They aren’t open about the fact that 21H1 for desktop will be just another small build. They never told Insiders the truth about Mobile’s 152xx shenanigans, even long after it was obvious that it was the end of the line. Remember that one time they denied that “springs” meant “spring” instead of just admitting that they missed their self-imposed deadline for a preview build? Yeah, that happened (and that was last year, can you believe it?).
I like how they just copy-paste blogposts at this point without bothering to check if the information is correct for that build. The 21277 blogpost announces that new Dev Channel builds will flight with their corresponding SDK. There isn’t a 21277 SDK. It’s left out of the 20279 blogpost which didn’t flight with an SDK either, so at least they got that one right (though these texts don’t refer to the builds specifically, so even other notes still imply 20279 should have shipped with an SDK, regardless of how useful that would have been).
Project Catnip was a thing too, then it got cancelled (1,5 year after its announcement) before it ever launched. It was supposed to be a replacement(?) for the Feedback Hub’s announcements and incorporate information about events as well as podcasts. Didn’t happen. Never even said why, just “technical limitations”. Whut? Catnip, by the way, was trying to solve something that Microsoft could as well have solved by just keeping the Feedback Hub up-to-date for the most part.
Look… I don’t know why they do this and I can only guess why they keep doing it over and over again. They certainly aren’t open to criticism on their lacking communication skills, not responding at all to it or just ridiculing the notion that they might need to brush up on them. And that’s a problem. It’s frankly infuriating that Microsoft seems to feel like it has to be so secretive about these things that people already know about and then sometimes even feels the need to tell us we’re wrong when we’re obviously not. They call Insiders their fans, but it certainly isn’t what they treat them like.
Why do we need to keep turning to journalists and insiders like Zac Bowden to learn what the Windows Insider Program is actually doing? Why do we need people like Gustave Monce, Rafael Rivera and Tero Alhonen to uncover what little has changed (and what is in the works, but that is an entirely different matter that isn’t an issue here) between builds while the near-empty blogposts seem desperate to fill themselves up but ignore these small changes? Why do we need websites like this very ChangeWindows to keep track of new releases in WIP because the WIP team can’t be bothered to update its Flight Hub in a timely manner and/or provide a proper centralized source for information like it?
