Preface

During my 15 years at Microsoft, I have spent 10 years working in various product groups shipping 11 products, including Windows NT, Visual Studio, BackOffice, Small Business Server, and the Microsoft Mouse. I have also been on a couple of canceled projects that never made it out the door. For the past 5 years, I have been consulting on Microsoft's best source code control (SCC), build, test, and deployment processes, with an emphasis on the build process. It seems that for all the years that I have been working at Microsoft, I have always been in some kind of Software Configuration Management (SCM) role working in the build lab, writing and running tests, creating setup programs, or coordinating project meetings.

This book contains the knowledge I have gained while working on these various projects. Furthermore, I have built on the experiences of the people who were there before me and the lessons they taught me. I also gathered a lot of tips from people who are currently in the product team.

Many things can and have been said about Microsoft, but there is one thing most people will agree on: Microsoft has been one of the more successful companies when it comes to shipping software. Sure, we might be notorious for missing our ship date, but despite this fact, Microsoft cranks out hundreds of released software products per year thousands if you include hotfixes via Windows Update. That is why we have all the processes mentioned in this book: to minimize the slippage and optimize the development process.

I tried to capture the best new and classic processes that we have developed throughout the years so that I could pass them on to you in The Build Master: Microsoft's Software Configuration Management Best Practices.