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Access 2007 Beta 2 Misconception #3 - Somebody else will report this bug

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This is something that I have been guilty of in a number of ocasions. If you run into any bugs or issues when using any pre-release (and to some extent, even released) software, make sure you report them to the manufacturer. Do not expect it to get reported by somebody else.

For example, if you try your existing Access solution with Access 2007 Beta 2 and you see errors where you didn't before or missing data, please contact Microsoft (preferably through the Beta channels - because you will then likely get feedback on the progress of the issue, etc). Do not assume that the Access Team knows that issue or that somebody else reported it already.

Do send us feedback even for issues that seem brain dead, such as an error during boot or such. I say that because bugs that seem 100% reproducible in one machine sometimes are only reproducable in that machine. This is particularly the case for racing condition and configuration bugs.

As an example, a long time ago I saw a very weird memory issue (causing a crash in a server app) when using only a specific machine made by a specific manufacturer with a specific brand of memory. Since this was a prototype loaned to us from a hardware company, we dug deep to figure out if it was a hardware issue or something software-related - this was no joke since the machine costed upwards of $50,000 a piece and had some new custom hardware for some new memory-related functionality. After a couple of *months* of investigation - with this machine being the sole known affected hardware - it ended up being a software bug. Of course, once the problem was figured out, it started being seen on other machines.

Also very useful for us, especially for Service Packs, is the Error Reporting in Windows (also known as Watson Crash Reports). Contrary to what most people think, there are very strict privacy policies in place, and these are very useful for us to address customer issues, which frequently we don't know of until we get these reports.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2006
    It's not entirely clear what the proper channel for submitting bugs is.  Could you point me in the right direction?
  • Anonymous
    July 23, 2006
    Hi Tim,

    From what I understand (and if that's not the case, let me know) that instructions to report bugs are being given when you sign up for the Beta program.

    If you want to send feedback rather than bugs (e.g. this feature is difficult to use, this looks good, this is ugly, etc), there is a tool call "Send a Smile" that is very useful and being closely monitored by the product groups.

    Here is some info on it: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/05/26/607768.aspx

    Link to download the tool:
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A2E1F4E2-BC0F-4403-B09F-7A677D55F274&displaylang=en
  • Anonymous
    July 26, 2006
    There is some info on how to report bugs at http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.word.application.errors/browse_thread/thread/317eadf7dd943f7d/163624ae61798912?lnk=st&q=report+bugs+2007+
  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2006
    I have found numerous bugs in access 2007. Each time I find one, I try to report it. No luck so far. Even the "report a broken link"-link is broken.
  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2006
    Hi Willem,

    Do you mean these steps don't work?

    1. Click the Microsoft Office Button [File]
    2. Go to the bottom of that menu and select the Options choice.
    3. In the Options - select 'Resources'
    4. Use the 'Contact us' button.
      The web page there has a feedback submission link.
  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2006
    Which feedback submission link do you suggest? They are all about feedback on the website itself, not the products. NB: "report a problem" was broken yesterday.

    Ah, found a proper one now: on the left it says: send us your comments (might have been broken yesterday as well). Too bad I can't send my bug-database, which makes the problem really clear.

    reported it. fyi, the bug-report itself:
    Access 2007 bug. The listbox after_update event doesn't work properly when selecting multiple items using the <ctrl> key. itemsselected.count = 0. In 2002 this work fine.
  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2006
    Willem, thanks for the bug report... Keep them coming!