Microsoft Gives Insiders 4 Builds as July 29th Approaches
posted Sunday Jul 5, 2015 by Scott Ertz
Microsoft's big day, July 29, is coming quickly. On that day, full-screen Windows 10 versions officially make it to the public. These versions are Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education. Essentially, if it will normally run on a screen larger than 7", it will be available on that date. As the day comes closer, it is expected that incremental builds of the base will become more stable.
Microsoft's Insider release rules are based on stability. Gabe Aul, the voice of the Insider Program, has said that builds are tested internally and if they are found to be stable, they are released to the Fast Ring users. This week he said,
We're focused at this point on bug fixing and final polish, so it's much easier for each build to get all the way through than earlier in the cycle when we're adding big new features. now we find ourselves in a great situation, with an abundance of build candidates.
With this abundance of builds, Fast Ring Insiders saw an overabundance of new builds released: 3 for PC and 1 for mobile. The mobile build had been available previously, but had an upgrade bug that meant anyone who wanted to try it was forced to clear their phone back to Windows Phone 8.1 and upgrade form there. The new release made it possible for anyone to get the build.
Where the excitement came in was the 3 PC builds. 10158 was released on Monday, June 29: one month before the official launch. It was based on bug fixes and final polish. We saw icon changes, tweaks to the Start menu and Microsoft Edge branding. Continuum saw updates, as well as Cortana and Photos. The biggest change, however, came in the list of known issues; there were none. In fact, rather than a long list of known issues, the release notes instead said,
We don't have any significant known issues for this build worth noting in the blog post, but we are servicing several issues so make sure you check Windows Update for those.
Before anyone had enough time to prove that statement true or false, Microsoft released Build 10159 only 24 hours later. It included the new Windows 10 hero image on a tweaked login screen, as well as including it on anyone's desktop that had not already set an image. That was really the major change to this new build, though it was a welcomed change.
On Thursday, just in time to experience for the weekend, Microsoft released Build 10162. This build was very focused on bug fixes and performance than any previous build. Aul said,
Build 10162 is another great one. In fact, our testing and internal telemetry metrics show it has better reliability, performance, battery life, and compatibility than any Windows 10 Insider Preview build so far.
The company also released installation ISOs for the build, which they only do when they are very confident in a build. They are also already considering rolling it out to Slow Ring users, another sign of confidence. All of this movement is a great sign for what is to come with the final build in just under a month.