Or ‘Why I Don’t Like Microsoft, Part 1’
For years Microsoft has made VPC images available that designers and developers could install using virtualization solutions like VirtualBox, VMWare or Parallels. Sometime around August 2009 they broke those images, requiring activation. This meant that, in order to test in various versions of Microsoft’s operating system and with various versions of Internet Explorer, you had to purchase an expensive license for each copy. This of course completely negated the purpose of having the images to begin with.
When Alan Burke ran into the activation problem he started a thread on the VirtualBox forums. Nobody knew what was going on. After a fair amount of back-and-forth, Pete LePage, an Internet Explorer Product Manager, popped in to say that Microsoft has never officially supported any virtual hosting application other than VPC:
Since we started shipping the VPC images in late 2006, we have never officially supported other VM hosting applications other than Microsoft VPC, and Microsoft Legal required us to add that part into the EULA.
That completely misses the point. The problem wasn’t with the EULA and I don’t need officially supported images. I just need images that I can install and test on without purchasing thousands of dollars worth of licenses.
Pete also said:
If there is enough demand, we may be able to get additional images built, I’d ask that you email me at plepage@microsoft.com along with the VPC software you’re running so we can have a better idea of the numbers and needs.
I emailed him and never heard back. A few days ago he responded to a more well-known designer, Veerle Pieters, in the comments section of a flickr photo she posted when she ran into the same activation issue:
Yep, we are aware of the issue, and we haven’t been able to find a good fix yet. We’ve figured out what the problem is at this point, why they used to work and why they now require activation. The question is how we fix that – it’s a combination of technology and policy.
For those who think it’s Microsoft trying to screw over non-Mac users, please believe me it isn’t. I have been gathering comments from folks to try to use to push the changes – so please keep them coming. Please shoot me an email and I can see what I can do to help!
It should be noted that this is almost six months after the problem first appeared. If Microsoft wanted to fix it, it would be fixed. I emailed Pete in August 2009 like he asked and I never heard back from him. I also have yet to get a reply in Veerle’s flickr thread either. Pete asking for people to email him has all the appearance of Microsoft’s standard M.O. as it removes the discussion from the public view. Not replying to those emails, not providing any sort of status updates and not doing anything for six months just reinforces that negative perception.
This is a real pain point for developers and it has real consequences for Microsoft. IE browsers are already on the bottom of my testing list and I’ve already decided IE users can have a less visually rich experience as long as they get the same content.
I don’t have infinite resources. The more difficult it is to test on their products, the less I’m able to do. It becomes a situation where, even if I want to provide a richer experience for IE users, I can’t.
PREVIOUS: Quick Tip: Pay Attention | NEXT: Type in Motion