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Digging Deeper

Back when most software was distributed on CDs, I was a test manager on a consumer application that ran on Windows machines. Part of the project involved creating and testing the installation program. With just a few weeks to go before we burned the golden master CD, we had found no bugs in the installer, so we thought it was good to go.

We gave a preliminary copy of the CD to our tech support group so they could prepare for the launch. Shortly thereafter, I got a phone call from the head of support. “Hey,” he said. “We installed the software, but it doesn’t work!”

I couldn’t believe it. We were just about to ship. We’d been testing for months. Of course it worked. I assumed the problem must be human error. I went over to ...