Microsoft launched its Windows Insider program back in 2014 to get public feedback on Windows 10 as it was developed. Since then, the company has continued to provide regularly updated preview builds of Windows 10 and Windows 11 to preview and test new features.
Like many public beta programs, Microsoft maintains different channels for different users, with occasional changes to each channel’s name and stated purpose. Today Microsoft is renaming one channel and introducing another. The channel formerly known as “Dev”will now be called “Canary”and is where Microsoft will test its least stable and most experimental features (including “major changes to the Windows kernel, new APIs, etc.”). “).
“The builds that will be sent to the Canary Channel will be ‘hot out of the press’ and will be released shortly after they are built, meaning very little validation and documentation will be done before they are offered to Insiders,”writes the Windows Insider Program. Hosted by Amanda Langowski.
The Canary Channels of some software releases (including Chrome Canary and Firefox Nightly) may be updated once a day, and Microsoft has historically maintained an internal Canary Channel that is updated daily. This new public Canarian channel “will not receive daily builds,”writes Langowski, “however, we may release builds more frequently in the future.”
The Dev channel will still exist, but it is being “rebooted”as an intermediate step between the Dev and Beta channels. Microsoft will continue testing early features here, including some that will never make it to the stable version of the operating system. But compared to the Canary channel, builds will “provide better platform stability”and will be more thoroughly documented – blog posts highlighting new fixes and features will still be available for all Dev and Beta channel releases, but not all Canary channel releases.
The Beta and Release Preview channels do not change. The beta channel will be more stable than the new developer channel, and features that make it into the beta channel will most likely end up being released to the public. The Release Preview channel is usually the last stop of an update before a release to the general public.
Shaking up the various Windows Insider channels makes more sense for the way Windows 11 is updated — a little at a time, with small patches released regularly, large service packs bundled together several times a year, and larger structural changes limited to one time. -annual “feature updates”that form the basis for further changes.
But it might cause momentary pain to anyone in the old Dev channel. Insiders in the current Dev channel will be automatically moved to the Canary channel, where they will continue to receive Windows Updates with build numbers in the 25000s. Switching to the “rebooted”Dev channel to get 23000-series builds will require a clean install of the operating system, although current users of the Beta and Release Preview channels (both running 22000-s builds) can switch to the new Dev. channel without reinstalling Windows.