Microsoft Will Now Preview the Future of Windows With New Canary Channel (theverge.com) 23
Microsoft is getting ready to publicly test major new Windows features even earlier. While the software giant has been previewing changes to Windows for nearly a decade, a new Canary channel for Windows Insiders will allow anyone to try out "hot off the presses" builds of Windows that include major changes to the kernel, APIs, and other big parts of Windows. From a report: It feels like this new Canary channel is preparation work for Windows 12, which Intel and Microsoft have both been hinting at recently. "The new Canary Channel is going to be the place to preview platform changes that require longer-lead time before getting released to customers," says Amanda Langowski, Microsoft's head of the Windows Insider program, in a blog post today. "Some examples of this include major changes to the Windows kernel, new APIs, etc." We've seen Microsoft test underlying platform changes to Windows before that eventually shipped in a future version of Windows. Microsoft tested some display changes to Windows 10 preview builds before Windows 11 was announced, and the changes only ended up shipping in what became Windows 11. Likewise, x64 emulation for Windows 10 on Arm was tested early on and only ever shipped in Windows 11.
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It's the channel nobody watches to learn about features nobody wants.
The canary is the first to croak in a coal mine if there are fumes, alerting the humans to get the hell out. How fitting.
Re:What's a canary channel? (Score:4, Funny)
The canary is the first to croak in a coal mine if there are fumes, alerting the humans to get the hell out. How fitting.
Following Microsoft's lead, McDonald's has announced the Salmonella Channel, where customers can preview their foods before they're cooked.
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And now YOU can be that canary! For free!
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I just spotted Nadella's car directly below me...
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Probably named for the canary in a coal mine. Be the canary! Die for Microsoft!
Never again (Score:4, Interesting)
Last time I tried out insider builds of the operating system, I encountered this problem:
* You must keep moving to the next insider build of the operating system, OR ELSE.
* Yes, even if the newer insider build does not work properly on your computer, you are forbidden from staying on the same insider build.
* This is enforced by BSOD after two hours of uptime if your insider build is deemed too old.
So yeah, stay away from any "insider" builds.
Who does this? (Score:2)
Why would anyone do this? Yes, I want to try to get my daily work done on a platform that might do, well, anything, at any moment.
Not for me.
Want me to beta your code? Fuck you, pay me.
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To keep up with the Jonesdashians: show off your bloat-stack booty for bragging rights and resume buzzword stuffing.
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They removed the registry setting that allows you to change the size of the taskbar from it's normally bloated height. I can't see where Insiders complained about this and it really started generating complaints after the most recent update. Is the point of Insider channel just to get you used to the next decline in service early or can they actually get involved and start telling Microsoft to stop being stupid?
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I've gotten a few showstopper bugs fixed with Feedback Hub on an insider build. Sometimes it takes multiple reports across several builds but it can be done.
Some stuff is deliberate so they ignore complaints from insiders. Many of us complained about the way you can't bypass the current Start bar for a list of all installed applications (you must click the all apps button) in Win11, which is a downgrade from the Win10 Start bar where you could set it up to show everything you had installed (instead of pin
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What with Offce in the cloud and pissing off Windows enterprise users, I'm suspecting that they're trying to deliberately kill off Windows.
Is this an early April Fools joke? (Score:2)
Canaries used to be used in mines to alert miners when there was a lack of oxygen or poisonous gas. If the canary passed out or died, everyone needed to get out.
So is this new channel being made to alert you early so that when something breaks, you know to that it's time to move away from Windows?
windows Embedded industry build (Score:2)
windows Embedded industry build*
*not for use on life critical systems
The Insider Program is a mess (Score:2)
And has been for some time. Dev channel, Beta channel, Release Preview channel, and now Canary? And no intent that things you've seen in an 'advance' channel will ever make it to the release version. Heck, no guarantee that any two releases from the same channel will even be the same, what with all the A/B shit they're pulling.
I quit the Insiders thing years ago - got real tired of being a chump. Unpaid QA for MS - no thanks.
Don't they realize... (Score:2)