14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 10 was launched on July 29 to users across the world, but testers who were part of the Windows Insider program had received early builds of the operating system many months before in order to help Microsoft improve it before the general release.
But while Windows 10 was built with help from users across the world, Microsoft also tested the new operating system on computers within the company in order to thoroughly see how early builds work before actually shipping them to insiders.
The company had its very own internal rings for Windows 10, so before fast ring insiders got a new build, they were all tested by Microsoft’s own employees.
Through testing of new builds
And according to a recent case study documenting the internal Windows 10 deployment process, Microsoft had nearly 40,000 workers running the new OS on their computers, not only to diagnose bugs but also to help improve general performance.
“Prior to product release, there were 38,000 users, roughly 40 percent of employees, internally running Windows 10. Microsoft IT used flighting (delivering pre-release builds of Windows 10 through Windows Update) to make sure that early adopters were running the latest builds as they became available,” Redmond says.
“The early adoption community is closely tied to a moderated internal community support forum, where users could report issues and seek assistance from other users. Microsoft IT was able to gain early insight by watching the threads to identify issues as they surfaced.”
Starting early 2016, Microsoft plans to provide insiders with access to builds that were previously exclusively available to company employees, thus trying to speed up development of the next OS updates coming in the summer.
Plans to release builds faster to users aren’t new, but they obviously include additional risks, as more bugs and issues are very likely to be experienced, so Redmond recommends those who don’t have the time to hunt down bugs to switch to the slow ring or to remain on the stable version.