Original author(s) License Proprietary software | Development status Active Website insider.windows.com | |
Initial release October 1, 2014; 2 years ago (2014-10-01) Operating system | ||
The Windows Insider program by Microsoft allows users who own a valid Windows 10 license to sign up for early builds of the operating system previously only accessible to developers. It was announced on September 30, 2014 along with Windows 10. By September 2015 over 7 million people took part in the Windows Insider Program. On February 12, 2015, Microsoft started to test out previews of Windows 10 Mobile. Microsoft announced that the Windows Insider program would continue beyond the official release of Windows 10 for future updates. Dona Sarkar is the head of the Windows Insider program. Similar to the Windows Insider program, the Microsoft Office, Bing and Xbox teams have set up their own Insider program.
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History
Microsoft originally launched the Windows Insider program for enterprise testers and the "technically able" to test out new developer features and to gather feedback to improve the features built into Windows 10, and by the time of the official launch of the Windows 10 operating system for PCs a total of 5 million Windows Insiders were registered on both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile and these Insiders were also among the first people to receive the official update to Windows 10.
With the release of Windows 10 the Windows Insider app was merged with the settings panel making it a built in component of Windows 10, this made the ability to install Windows Insider preview builds an optional feature which could be accessed directly from within the Windows 10 operating system without needing to install a separate app.
Rings
Windows 10 Insider preview updates are delivered to testers in different rings, Windows Insiders in the fast ring receive updates prior to Windows Insiders in the slow ring but might experience more bugs and other issues. In February 2016 Microsoft introduced new rings for the Windows Insider preview.
List of supported mobile phone devices
Microsoft initially launched the Windows 10 Insider Preview (formally known as Windows 10 Technical Preview) for certain third-generation (x30 series) phones from their Lumia family and subsequently released it to second-generation (x20 series) devices throughout the testing phase. After many Windows Insiders hacked their non-Lumia phones (which were not supported at the time) by altering what model was displayed in order to downloaded the preview builds, Microsoft responded by blocking all unsupported models. To roll back the installed technical preview back to Windows Phone 8.1 Microsoft launched the Windows Device Recovery Tool that will remove Windows 10 and recover the latest officially released software and firmware.
Preview build 10080, released on May 14, 2015, was the first to support a non-Lumia device, the HTC One M8 for Windows. This was followed up by Xiaomi who, in partnership with Microsoft, released a ROM port of Windows 10 to its flagship Mi 4 handset on June 1, 2015. At that time it was limited to certain registered users in China. Build 10080 and its follow-up build 10166 also added support for fourth-generation Lumia (x40 series) devices; as a result, all compatible Windows Phone 8 or later Lumia phones now support the preview.
In August 2015, Microsoft stated that while all Windows Phone devices, including those from Microsoft's new hardware partners announced the previous year, will receive the final version of Windows 10 Mobile, not all would receive preview builds through the Insider program. However, the company did not provide any information at the time on whether new devices will be added to the preview program, a sign that Windows 10 Mobile was more or less in its completed state. Microsoft instead focused on promoting new devices that come with Windows 10 Mobile, including their Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL flagships, and the low-cost Lumia 550 and Lumia 650. Since their release, these new Windows 10 devices became eligible to receive future updates in advance via the Insider program, beginning with build 10586 on December 4, 2015. The Windows-based LG Lancet also received this version but has not been upgraded since.
On February 19, 2016, Microsoft released the first Windows 10 Mobile "Redstone" preview, build 14267. Starting with this build, future preview versions became exclusively available for devices that are already running a non-Insider preview of the OS, except for the Mi4 ROM version. This was followed by build 14291, released for existing Windows 10 devices on March 17, 2016 in conjunction with the official RTM release of Windows 10 Mobile to third and fourth-generation Lumias. The following week, it became available to the newly upgraded older Lumias in addition to several other devices already on Windows 10 Mobile at the time.