One of the things we sometimes struggle with is getting quality feedback from our customers directly to the developers..... and even more importantly figuring out how to incorporate that feedback into our product planning. So in Windows Server 2008 Server Manager (main page and for every role) you will see a link to allow you to “Send feedback to Microsoft” in the “Resources and Support” section of the page.

This link will take you directly from server manager to a web page on connect.microsoft.com where you can provide feedback on Windows Server. This feedback can be pretty much anything ranging from a concrete suggestion to a general feature request. Once you provide your feedback it will be visible to other users who visit this site and available for everyone to vote on. The expectation is that items that are most popular will get the most votes. Items that cross a pre-defined threshold of votes (we are still experimenting with what this should be) will automatically be forwarded to the development team. For those who are curious, the mechanism for this is a home grown app called “Product Studio” which the developers use as the central part of their development process and where they track all their work items. The feedback items automatically show up in Product Studio, “in the face” of the developers.

The development teams will consider these suggestions and their voting weight as part of their future planning and will use the input as they design new features and evolve existing features. Hopefully you can see how this little feature in Server Manager can help you can directly influence how Windows Server evolves and you can have an impact on the OS that you use.