Windows 10 - Will there be any more Preview Builds ?
Back in late May - MS released Windows 10 Tech Preview build 10130. While the build showed some improvements - it was not very great either and I stated in my review on May 30 - that Windows 10 still seemed pretty unfinished.
Well here we are on June 28 - almost a month from the 10130 release and while there have been screen shots and leaked builds of 10146, 10149, etc, there has been no official release to the Fast Ring group.
So this concerns me. Like many I was expecting to see at least 2 builds from the May 29th release of 10130 to RTM release scheduled for July 29. Now - I am getting the feeling we may not see any..
With that said - if you think back to the release schedules for previous versions of Windows there was always a 45 - 60 day gap from the last "Release Candidate" to RTM - but that was mostly to support the M part of RTM or manufacturing - so packaging, media, etc.
Windows 10 is really not going to have that. It's primary distribution method is Windows Update. So what's going on...
MS needs the Insider community to have more confidence in Windows 10. We need to see a more polished build before July 29. Many of us are tech influencers at one scale or another. If we don't feel confident that Windows 10 is "ready" then we're just not going to recommend going there.
Obviously there is still work going on as two newer builds 10136 and then 10149 were released for Windows 10 Mobile. And actually the 10149 Mobile build was much improved over 10136 so progress is being made.
My only thoughts are that MS is trying to get Edge properly bundled into the desktop build and trying to cleanup the real upgrade process. As I've stated in several reviews of previous builds - the upgrade process has not been smooth and that has to be right for MS to be successful with Windows 10. They also need to get the Post OS Store app updates process right. It fails too often..
This is especially true with older machines. I recently help a colleague upgrade an older Dell Precision laptop to build 10130. I performed a clean install which went okay - but afterwards began experiencing BSOD after Windows Update attempted to upgrade the Nvidia video driver. I actually had to back out to the default Widows driver and disable Windows Update driver updates.
So MS needs to be very cautious with their approach on upgrade. It's one thing to ask Insiders to do a rebuild or apply some registry hack etc to get a build working, its another thing entirely to apply the update to a non-techiie's sole machine with limited or no backup, no ISOs of their old OS, etc.
We all know that many of the "Recovery Disk" scenarios that were developed by MS & OEMS for Windows 7 & 8 machines just don't work and many folks did not create them in the first place. So the potential risk here is high.
The last thing MS needs is for the Windows 10 upgrade to start turning folks perfectly working Windows 7 or 8 machine into a brick..
I hope I am wrong here and that there will be one more Preview Build before July 29. Maybe the MS folks will get one more out here before MS's FY end on Tue..
Well here we are on June 28 - almost a month from the 10130 release and while there have been screen shots and leaked builds of 10146, 10149, etc, there has been no official release to the Fast Ring group.
So this concerns me. Like many I was expecting to see at least 2 builds from the May 29th release of 10130 to RTM release scheduled for July 29. Now - I am getting the feeling we may not see any..
With that said - if you think back to the release schedules for previous versions of Windows there was always a 45 - 60 day gap from the last "Release Candidate" to RTM - but that was mostly to support the M part of RTM or manufacturing - so packaging, media, etc.
Windows 10 is really not going to have that. It's primary distribution method is Windows Update. So what's going on...
MS needs the Insider community to have more confidence in Windows 10. We need to see a more polished build before July 29. Many of us are tech influencers at one scale or another. If we don't feel confident that Windows 10 is "ready" then we're just not going to recommend going there.
Obviously there is still work going on as two newer builds 10136 and then 10149 were released for Windows 10 Mobile. And actually the 10149 Mobile build was much improved over 10136 so progress is being made.
My only thoughts are that MS is trying to get Edge properly bundled into the desktop build and trying to cleanup the real upgrade process. As I've stated in several reviews of previous builds - the upgrade process has not been smooth and that has to be right for MS to be successful with Windows 10. They also need to get the Post OS Store app updates process right. It fails too often..
This is especially true with older machines. I recently help a colleague upgrade an older Dell Precision laptop to build 10130. I performed a clean install which went okay - but afterwards began experiencing BSOD after Windows Update attempted to upgrade the Nvidia video driver. I actually had to back out to the default Widows driver and disable Windows Update driver updates.
So MS needs to be very cautious with their approach on upgrade. It's one thing to ask Insiders to do a rebuild or apply some registry hack etc to get a build working, its another thing entirely to apply the update to a non-techiie's sole machine with limited or no backup, no ISOs of their old OS, etc.
We all know that many of the "Recovery Disk" scenarios that were developed by MS & OEMS for Windows 7 & 8 machines just don't work and many folks did not create them in the first place. So the potential risk here is high.
The last thing MS needs is for the Windows 10 upgrade to start turning folks perfectly working Windows 7 or 8 machine into a brick..
I hope I am wrong here and that there will be one more Preview Build before July 29. Maybe the MS folks will get one more out here before MS's FY end on Tue..
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