We all know...

Silver Contributor

I felt like sharing this FWIW... thoughts on paper, so to speak (no pun intended)

 

We all know one does not have to be a Windows Insider & running Win10 Insider Builds to run Edge C.  But, maybe, this is, at least, slightly interesting... I am a Windows Insider & I am running Win10 Insider Build. It is a vm w/ 2G (assigned) RAM, 4 virtual processors & 250 vhd; the Host is 8G RAM w/ an i7.  Niether particularly or terribly spectacular.


Now, to the rub. I am treating the IB (Insider Build) like a daily-driver. I am running Edge C Dev & Canary, plus Edge, Office365, various other items, whatever I want or need basically, multiple desktops w/ a slew of windows, web sites & apps going.  In spite of all described above, Edge C flies, snappy, solid and seemingly happy as hell.

All things considered, seems to speak volumes; image the thing on a fairly robust physical machine.  I, certainly, could have it there, but, the vm is a good place to play and showing true colours of Edge C... to repeat: if it acts like this on this wee vm, that's, really, showing some impressive elan.

Noteworthy, too, is how much ethusiastic praise Edge C is receiving, already. And so many Folks lauding it over a wide array of other browsers and excited/anxious to switch to it. 

Anyway, thanks for listening (being bored 🥱 ;)) 

Cheers,
Drew
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PS: WOW, did it ever blow me away when it printed that Safeway sheet properly.  Almost feel silly telling their IT to fix the issue (like I did) :face_with_rolling_eyes:

 

10 Replies
Yes it's solid and stable as hell. neither Insider build 20H1 fast ring nor Edge canary ever crashed or lead to GSOD. I use the insider as my main OS, no VM. because the point is to give Microsoft feedbacks and diagnostics based on real life and every day works. if people use insider in VM then we see some wierd unknown problems pop out after Microsoft releases the build to everyone, because Insiders only used it in VM and didn't test everything on it like software, games, settings etc so there wasn't enough data sent to Microsoft to identify any possible problem.

@HotCakeX 

Ok, thanks for the lecture LOL.  I have been beta testing OSs for MS since Vista. Dual boots, VMs, partitioned drives, their own drives; not, always, a vm.  You do state a good & valid point.  But, it's ok since whatever limitations there may be w/ a vm, oodles of Insiders have theirs on a physical machine and also, countless others using HyperV.  BUT, not a production machine!  Won't debate it, but that is never recommended & always discouraged.  Betas should be VMs, dual boots or spare boxes.  For those who do otherwise... thank all the gods & goddesses the IBs are usually, basically, ok.

There is a rumour that virtualization is often for testing purposes.  Speaking of which, there's another Bug Bash coming up, anon.  It (virt) is, also, nice since one can 'see'/ work in both the host & the vm simultaneously or easily back n forth.  

I will say, we have heard of fewer disasters from people doing that w/ Win10 than, when they did it w/ prior OSs betas.  Certainly, in the early Win10 days there were many forum entries saying, "I put it on my computer, what now?", to which, we'd say, "Sorry" & send a sympathy card ;) Why it happens when the DL site clearly says, "Don't" 🤷🏻‍:male_sign:.  I have IT colleagues who have said, w/ a wink & a chuckle, "Hey, it keeps me in business".

Cheers,
Drew
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I think you should use a browser with spelling And grammar corection lol, because clearly Edge is not for you.
"won't debate it" lol i dont care? it's your opinion so keep it for yourself.
what i said was true and valid so not my problem if it got you triggered, you can go head and use your VMs.

@Drew1903   I was an insider (Fast Ring) for 1803 and 1809, then Skip Ahead for 1903, electing to step out a month or two into that testing so someone else could have the Step Ahead seat because W10 was focused on developing  features/functions I don't and probably never will use, and I offered no real value testing that build.  I've tested builds of a non-derivative Linux distro (that is, designed from the ground up except for the Kernel) for the last several years.  And now I'm testing the new iteration of Edge.  I mention that to give context to what I'm going to say next.

 

I realize that many testers use VM's for testing, and that makes sense for those unable/unwilling to dedicate hardware to the task, but VM testing has a flaw.  VM testing (even Hyper-V which uses a level of hardware interation, but most certainly Virtual Box and VMWare) won't catch OS/hardware interaction bugs, and VM's won't catch OS/software interaction bugs, either, unless the tester is careful to load all software that is used on the core machine to the VM machine.

 

MS has been having a horrible time of late with releasing faulty builds and updates.  1809 is infamous, of course (and will not, apparently, be released to most users at all, moving them directly 1803 into 1903), but I can't recall a monthly (Patch Tuesday) update recently that hasn't run into trouble with some hardware or software upon release, almost always because of hardware incompatibility or incompatibilities with deep-dive software like AV.

 

I know that it is impossible to catch everything.  I know that from experience managing development and deployments during my working days.  And I don't claim to have a grasp of the complexity of development/deployment for a billion computers, spread globally, and running everything including Aunt Sally.  The largest development/deployment I helped manage was just under 500,000 seats in 37 countries, within a relatively controlled enterprise environment, which is piddling in comparison.

 

I don't dismiss the value of VM testing (every pair of eyes on is a pair of eyes on, and every pair of eyes helps).  But VM-testing has limitations.

 

This particular testing situation is interesting, because I suspect that most users are installing Edge Chromium on their primary computer(s), running it alongside Edge Classic.  The only thing that I've found that breaks because of direct deployment on my computers is that Edge Classic no longer syncs across the three computers on which I've deployed Edge Chromium.  But otherwise, Edge Chromium seems to be no different than adding an additional unrelated browser, like Firefox, to the mix.

 

I've noticed, too, that Edge Chromium seems to be getting positive comment.  That's a good thing, because Edge Chromium is a stable, solid product with real potential as MS brings it up to speed and adds the features/functions that distinguished Edge Classic from the pack.  I'm here because I want Edge Chromium to become a stand-out in the browser world, and I suspect that you are, too.

 

Well, that's my soapbox entry for the week.  Enough said.

 

@Drew1903 

You know, whilst y'all are beating me up for running a vm, you have completely missed or ignored the point of what I had written.  That being the positive performance of Edge as indicated by it doing very well on a measly vm.

Maybe, I should throw it back on an hard drive just to get y'all off my back.  Nor do I appreciate the insult that I don't have the means, smarts or can't be bothered.  Plus there are countless Insiders, some run Win10 one way, some another and most all of us contribute valuable input.  Yet, you climb all over ONE person like a crusade against all the idiots using virtualization.

Meanwhile we have spent years trying to prevent people from putting betas on daily-drivers... which, is not the same as having it on a physical SPARE BOX.

The WIP & others seem to be cool w/ what I do & offer to try to be helpful to others.  I'll be grateful for that and not, dwell on a couple of rare exceptions.

This forum is not a place for throwing personal insults at people.  Unless you're perfect, then, apparently you can throw stones at others.

Yes, there was a tempoary issue w/ 1809 which, delayed it.  The issue require a specific scenario to manifest itself & consequently affected very few Users (not that that makes anything ok, of course). The issue what addressed & then, we carried on w/ most folks, long since, moving to 1809.

To read what some people write one wonders why they are in MS Forums or messing w/ anything Microsoft.

Plus, I clearly stated there are, indeed, some limitations if using a vm. But, there is no reason or need to panic or lecture ONE person out of millions of Insiders, but, if you think there is, you best yell at all of them, too.  If one wants to say a vm is wrong, putting a beta OS on a production machine billions of times more wrong; and that is not MY opinion. Don't try to invalidate it by using "doesn't count for anything because it's opinion".  It is not anyone's opinion, it's fact.  It is not my opinion, as was mentioned that it is emphatically stated, DO NOT right at the **bleep** download site, always has, even, pre-10.  Sure, does not necessarily mean using a vm, but, sure means DO NOT put it on a physical daily-driver.  So, thanks for telling I'm entitled to an opinion I don't have. And we will continue to try to keep people from doing it.

Reminds of people, when the betas started being offered to the public, trying to keep going w/ them or maybe a RTM, after release, totally afloof to the fact that they wouldn't last & then freak because, they had to get & install a proper OS.

There was an interesting message, some food for thought in what had been written regard Edge C performance.  2 of you have done a bloody good job of taking people away from that & pivoting them to a completely different & irrelevant topic.  Whether it is right or wrong to use a vm for IBs, is not, was not the subject.  Ergo, instead of going off-topic, things should go back to & stay on Edge C.

Maybe, a well educated, well spoken person's wording was so bad you decided they must be talking about something different than they thought when they wrote it.  Actually, upon re-reading it, comments faulting grammar & spelling are groundless.  But, thanks for the (kind & so necessary) input.

Please, leave pompous, judgemental attitude, insults & nastiness at the door.

Cheers,
Drew
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you're wrong from the beginning, it's not about VM at all. you are just triggered because i tried to teach you something and it felt hard for ya lol so yeah i don't bother to read the rest of your comment. have fun

@Drew1903  as someone who works in retail and knows others who work in retail 1809 was not a walk in the park. The delays were only the start of it but as soon as they had pushed that botched Windows update we had customers coming into stores for days with bricked computers. It was complete hell. Given the profit driven nature of retail and the fact that we can't offer services for free many people were forced into buying new Windows licences as they had lost their key. To down play it is foolish and to believe the fantasy story that it "only affected 1 in 100,000 users" is naïve. To put it into perspective the population of my city is a little under 100,000 and we had well over 50 devices in one store alone within the first week. Those will have only been customers who bought devices from us! 

 

I do also have to back the sentiment from @HotCakeX. Although everyone here is gathered to test and give feedback on Edge you might be better off using a browser with a spell check to avoid the rather frequent typos and maybe stop abbreviating 'with' to 'w/' as it's only 2 characters shorter and makes your comments all the more illegible. This isn't an "attack" on you but just some pointers. As someone with literacy dyslexia I find it often challenging to read your comments. Kudos to you for winning that award this week though, pretty cool stuff.

@Cameron_Bush   A quiet note in support of your comments about 1809:  As of the end of February, 1809 had an adoption rate just above 20%.  1803 continued to dominate, with an adoption rate over 70%.  Given those numbers, the conundrum for Microsoft is whether to upgrade 1803 users directly to 1903, or to require 1803 users to move to 1809 before moving to 1903.  I don't know what Microsoft intends to do in that regard, but Microsoft is at a point where it will have to decide.  Because users seem to have a bad taste in their mouth about 1809, whether or not that is justified, I hope that Microsoft will upgrade 1803 users directly to 1903.   1803 was a winner, in the sense that it was adopted at a phenomenal rate, and I would hate to see 1903 adoption bogged down by user mistrust of 1809.

@Drew1903 

 

Speaking of testing Windows and Edge Insider releases on a VM, as you said its more rational approach from reliability and OS "polluting" standpoint. I add - from Privacy standpoint too. At this stage Edge Chromium is likely to "telemetry" home a lot more often than Win 10 does, despite the latter being a proclaimed "chatter".

 

So using Edge Insider as a daily internet driver is a questionable tactics for some privacy cautious users. Speaking of testing on a VM, another known drawback is filtered interaction with PC hardware, making some tasks like video playback less pleasant and less reliable to test. 

 

Possibly the better approach is using a dedicated PC to test Windows and Edge Insider releases, making sure you don't touch private sides of your life at testing if possible.

@sambul95 

Sam, yes there are pros & cons to the vm approach. We, always, tell Folks run betas as dual boots, on a spare box or on a vm.  In my case, beta testing since Vista, have used every way at some point over the years. One nice thing about the vm route ( yes there are short-comings, too) is being able to 'see' both the vm & the host machine at the same time or go back & forth quickly & easily.  With Win10 it's made it easy to compare current installs to Insider Builds.  And the fact that if anything does go awry, no harm done to anything outside the testing platform.  And if the vm, the OS on it, really goes awry, just toss it & create a new vm. Certainly, we all know Enterprise IT rely heavily on virtual for testing before deploying.

Cheers,
Drew
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