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How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

schveiguy.com

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Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#31

Post by schveiguy »

sonyakop wrote: post #26

I would agree with Namrog84 (yes, I'm an MS employee). Also, the Excel UserVoice should allow you to report bugs and I would say should be your first stop for any issues that you encounter ( https://excel.uservoice.com/ ). Also, I worked as a Product Manager (Marketing) in the Office division for about 3 years, and honestly if you find folks who you know in Marketing, we're all about community and are willing to help…

Thank you. I should probably have tried those too. It would be a good idea to instruct your support people to refer to those places for bug reporting.

Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#32

Post by Spooky23 »

I get the same nonsense and runaround as a Premier customer.

10 years ago they were wonky about engineer assignment but excellent. 20 years ago a guy would be on an airplane for a crit sit.

Now, forget it. It seems like the KPI they care about isn't resolution, but getting issues dumped to the next queue.

Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#33

Post by schveiguy »

jbob2000 wrote: post #4

>My bug that I found has to do with Excel 2016. At my company, we have many spreadsheets that use a feature in Excel called “Web Queries“. These allow one to download a web page, or a table that is on the web page, into cells in your excel document. Ok, sounds janky, but go on... >In my particular case, I am using this feature to connect our internal job tracking system that I developed to spreadsheets that are used…

It's... complicated :) Mostly because utility companies insist on Excel for exchange of energy calculations. And even more importantly, because it was WAY WAY better than the previous iteration. Don't make me talk about it.

Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#35

Post by [deleted] »

mistermann wrote: post #22
namrog84 wrote: post #6

Hi schveiguy, I am just a completely random MS employee, acting on my own behalf, who is browsing HN on my day off from work. I work in Xbox and don't work anywhere related to Excel or tech support. I just repro'd your issue in under 30 seconds in Excel 2016, and also submitted an issue internally on this. I hope it helps :) http://i.imgur.com/N6X2Lj4.png Also, I'd highly recommend using the builtin feedback menu, e.…

I don't mean any personal disrespect, but I mostly don't believe you. Well sure, maybe in some divisions a few people (through a personal effort rather than corporate policy) look at these things and try to make good software, but outside of a few teams (PowerBI for example) I truly believe Microsoft is still primarily just about money and market share. As a company, Microsoft's official goal is not to make good soft…

[deleted]

Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#37

Post by Mz »

schveiguy wrote: post #29
namrog84 wrote: post #6

Hi schveiguy, I am just a completely random MS employee, acting on my own behalf, who is browsing HN on my day off from work. I work in Xbox and don't work anywhere related to Excel or tech support. I just repro'd your issue in under 30 seconds in Excel 2016, and also submitted an issue internally on this. I hope it helps :) http://i.imgur.com/N6X2Lj4.png Also, I'd highly recommend using the builtin feedback menu, e.…

So you are saying it actually worked. Awesome! And thank you very much! I honestly didn't know about the "frown" thing. I frankly have a hard time finding stuff in the menu on the 2016 products. I spent about 5 minutes looking at another person's PC (who was having the issue originally) to figure out what version of office they had before finally just clicking on the start menu and seeing "Excel 2016". Help->About ju…

Proof of concept. You win.

Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#38

Post by loup-vaillant »

mistermann wrote: post #22
namrog84 wrote: post #6

Hi schveiguy, I am just a completely random MS employee, acting on my own behalf, who is browsing HN on my day off from work. I work in Xbox and don't work anywhere related to Excel or tech support. I just repro'd your issue in under 30 seconds in Excel 2016, and also submitted an issue internally on this. I hope it helps :) http://i.imgur.com/N6X2Lj4.png Also, I'd highly recommend using the builtin feedback menu, e.…

I don't mean any personal disrespect, but I mostly don't believe you. Well sure, maybe in some divisions a few people (through a personal effort rather than corporate policy) look at these things and try to make good software, but outside of a few teams (PowerBI for example) I truly believe Microsoft is still primarily just about money and market share. As a company, Microsoft's official goal is not to make good soft…

> maybe in some divisions a few people […] try to make good software, but […] I truly believe Microsoft is still primarily just about money and market share.

I bet this is even worse: we can have most people at Microsoft trying to make good software (or good customer support, or good whatever they're doing), and still having the company as a whole being about just making money.

Because Microsoft, just like any corporation of its size, is not a democracy. It is controlled by its shareholders, not by its employees.

Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#39

Post by schveiguy »

mherdeg wrote: post #7

Ouch, sounds like this author used a long phone tree and talked to about ten front-line phone support technicians, none of whom were able to file a bug report. Bummer. Also sounds like one or more of those people advised him to report his issue in the web support forums at https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_... , which in my experience often get really good feedback from employees and expert…

Thanks for the information. I indeed was, after 80 minutes of phone call, not quite in a "listening" mood. I actually kind of felt bad yelling at the last person after hanging up -- it wasn't her fault I was chucked around for over an hour. I think definitely I will be more apt to try other avenues if I find another bug in the future.

Re: How to Report a Bug to Microsoft

#40

Post by efrafa »

oblosys wrote: post #27

There are also Microsoft teams that don't put you through such nightmare scenarios though. Last night I submitted a TypeScript bug report, and within 15 minutes it was labeled, added to the next-release milestone, and had someone assigned to it.

Probably because its open source and on github.
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