- On this week's episode of Ask Dan,
I'm gonna talk about
a controversial decision by Microsoft
to make changes to the Windows Insider program.
We'll talk about why they did that
and why it matters, stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
Why is Microsoft doing a limited rollout
of the new Sets feature for Windows Insiders?
Okay, so recently Microsoft announced
Sets coming to the Windows Insider Program.
That's just a temporary name, so if you don't like it,
don't worry, it'll probably get something worse,
or maybe better later on.
Anyway, Sets is coming to Insiders,
but it also gonna go wider in 2018.
There's no firm release date for it yet.
It may come with Redstone 4 or Redstone 5.
Microsoft is not committing any longer
to any firm release cycle for this feature.
And I think they'd done that because
they learned their some of their lessons
from things like Timeline,
which it did announce for Redstone 3, and of course,
it got pushed back until Redstone 4.
I think it's actually a smart move,
so they wanna work on it, and when it's ready,
it'll actually go out to
whatever release cycle is at the time.
Let's talk a little bit about Sets.
Our own Zac Boden reported
on this feature earlier this year
in an exclusive report.
It was also known as the Tabbed Shell experience.
And instead of opening
just tabs of a new instance of that app,
it now allows you to run UWP apps within that tab
or run the web browser
or other features of the OS.
It's coming to UWP apps first.
It'll eventually go to some Win32 apps,
including Office, in early 2018.
So I recently wrote an editorial about
why I'm personally excited about Sets, and the reason is
I saw it all in action a few weeks ago
when I met with Microsoft Executive Vice-President
Joe Belfiore in New York City.
So I got to see it in action, and it's very exciting.
And I agree, that's not really a sexy topic,
it is talk about productivity.
But I think, once you start using this,
you're gonna be very familiar with it
and gonna appreciate using it every day.
Sets is just a really cool addition to Windows 10,
and I think it borrows heavily
from where Chrome OS is going,
and this idea that we live in web browsers
and are very used to that experience.
Now let's talk a little bit about
the Windows Insider Program,
as there's some controversy here.
Microsoft is not gonna roll out this feature
to the Fast Ring to all Insiders.
Instead, it's going to just a small group at first.
And there's a good reason for this.
First of all, Sets started off
as a concept earlier this year,
but now, it is coming into reality.
But what's different this time around is,
normally in the Insider Program,
when a new feature comes out, it's around 75% complete.
What Microsoft is looking for at that time
is user feedback, specially self-reporting.
I like this feature, it looks great.
I don't like the icon, it doesn't behave well,
or it causes crashing.
This, however, with Sets, is gonna be a bit different.
Development is in very early cycle right now.
So, what we're getting is essentially a prototype.
When you first get Sets,
if you're one of the lucky few on the Fast Ring to get it,
it's gonna be very rough, and that's because
it is super early for this right now with Sets.
What they're looking for is
not so much whether you like it or not,
but whether it actually works.
And what I mean there is the efficiency.
Are you using all these tabs with apps
and embedding Word in there in the web browser,
and are you using it to be more efficient at your work,
or are you spending more time
switching between apps, not using it?
Don't forget, you can actually turn off Sets
if you don't like it.
Microsoft will give you that option.
At first, it will be global,
so it just turns off across the system.
But, eventually, it will be on a per-app basis.
So what they're looking for is evaluating
whether or not this is actually
an efficient use of your time.
And to do that, they're going to collect telemetry data,
which they've always done anyway on the Insider Program.
Do you evaluate whether or not this is actually efficient?
Later on, during the development cycle,
when it becomes more complete,
and they start adding polish,
that's when they're going to start using
the self-report features and getting feedback from users.
Now, I have a theory here as to
why Microsoft is doing this.
I have seen some internal telemetry data,
don't worry, Microsoft, I won't reveal it here,
but I've seen the result of some of their testing,
and what's being used and what's not being used,
say, in the Start menu or the taskbar.
And you'd be surprised as some of the choices
that Microsoft has made and roll out to customers
aren't being used that much.
Now, this is always the problem designing an OS,
the idea sounds good, you put it out there,
and then you see what actually customers are using.
And it turns out, well, not everything's gonna be a hit.
So what I actually thing is happening here is
Microsoft is taking a step back
in their development process.
Instead of putting a feature out there into the public
and getting feedback on it later on only to roll it back,
they're starting much earlier in the development process
to see if it's actually effective
and people are using it.
If, however, Sets doesn't actually pan out,
that is, people don't like it,
they're not more efficient with it,
they're not using it, they're turning it off,
well, I don't think Sets will actually go forward
because it's just not gonna be used,
and they're learning their lessons here
as they go forward.
As they bring out new features,
they're gonna be doing more evaluative testing,
and I think it's a smart idea.
After all, you don't wanna release something,
only to have to roll it back later on.
That's what Microsoft wants to find out
and why they're doing a very controlled study early on.
Now, this will shift later on in 2018.
I'm sure it'll open up to more in the Fast Ring.
But that's why there's a change this time around.
So that does it for this episode.
Remember, if you have a question,
use #AskDanWindows on Twitter
or go to our forums at Windows Central,
you can ask me there.
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Thanks for watching, take care everybody.
(breathes heavily)
On this week's Ask Dan, I'm g...
On this week's Ask Dan, we're gonna talk about
a controversial decision by Microsoft
to make changes...
Almost there. (chuckles)
Wow, I'm all (bleep) today.