[mystere]

The problem here is that historically, bug reporting was linked to tech support because only enterprise customers were expected to report bugs, and those customers were paying for those bugs to be resolved (hotfixes, for instance).

Nowadays, Microsoft is asking for bug reports from everyone, but has not fully created a support structure to make that feasible at scale. They seem to be iterating over the problem though, and maybe eventually they'll get it right.

[alkonaut]

I can see how a select few enterprises basically have agreements that mean they call their software vendor when they can't get their work done - and the vendor fixes the problem whether it requires a patch or just hand holding.

But having this system only, thinking it can be applied to small business or private customers is beyond naïve. Especially since they lose a free service - the quality bug reports from competent users.

The devdiv is way ahead of the rest at Microsoft - and the OSS bits are basically world leading. So there is certainly hope.