xsarien said:
Nothing says "Living dangerously" better than downloading and trying leaked Microsoft products, because their
final builds are oh-so-stable.
In my experience (granted, I haven't been involved with any ms beta products for several years, so this may have changed), MS' second to last betas are almost always very very stable. They work on a cycle where there are around 4 releases (depending):
- First release (beta 1) adds massive numbers of features. These features are the biggest and most important of the release. As such, they are usually terribly unstable.
- Second release (beta 2) stabilizes those features, and because they're the most important, they get the most stabilization. <-- this is where to use a beta product if you have a choice.
- Third release (beta 3/release candidate) adds more, less important new features. Destabilized again.
- Final release (usually) stabilizes the combination. Usually not quite as well.