Windows Insider builds with no new features or meaningful changes

We were pretty much doing this already, but I’d like to make this a formal policy going forward.

When Microsoft releases a new Windows Insider build, as they did today, that literally includes no new features, we’re just going to ignore that. There’s no need for a news story about nothing.

Assume this makes sense. Thanks,

Paul

Conversation 16 comments

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    24 June, 2020 - 1:14 pm

    <p>It makes perfect sense. If there’s nothing to report on, there’s no news!</p>

  • lwetzel

    Premium Member
    24 June, 2020 - 1:23 pm

    <p>No news isn't necessarily good news!</p><p><br></p>

    • miamimauler

      24 June, 2020 - 6:30 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#549120">In reply to lwetzel:</a></em></blockquote><p>Actually, given how buggy the latest update has been I would like to see MS focus solely on quality control and put aside new features until they achieve it.</p><p>While it's impossible for W10 updates to be totally bug free even the most loyal MS fan has to admit things have gone pear shaped and MS needs to get on top of it.</p>

  • johnlavey

    Premium Member
    24 June, 2020 - 4:34 pm

    <p>Great idea. Making news about 'nothing new' gives Microsoft more attention than they deserve. </p>

  • alsorun

    24 June, 2020 - 6:08 pm

    <p>I have two questions. 1. with so little or almost no change, why do they bother to issue another testing build. 2. how many developers working on it from last build to this one? one or two?</p><p><br></p>

    • wunderbar

      Premium Member
      24 June, 2020 - 8:12 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#549257">In reply to alsorun:</a></em></blockquote><p>If there are no user facing features, there can still be underlying code changes they want to get to users for testing.</p><p><br></p><p>take whatever little thing you want, I'll just say the code that executes in Windows whenever you click the start button. They could re-write that from scratch, but if to the user it looks and works exactly the same, there are "no new features" to list.</p>

      • christian.hvid

        25 June, 2020 - 4:34 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#549284">In reply to wunderbar:</a></em></blockquote><p>Indeed. Most code changes are just refactoring, and refactoring typically introduces new bugs. But <em>not </em>refactoring is like <em>not </em>weeding your garden – it's going to end up being a mess.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      25 June, 2020 - 5:21 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#549257">In reply to alsorun:</a></em></blockquote><p>They are constantly fixing problems. There will be a glut of new features at the beginning of the "semester", as the development semester draws to a close the new builds will include fixes that make it more stable and consistent. It should very much be the case that most of the builds will have nothing (visually) new, just fixing what they broke.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      25 June, 2020 - 8:16 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#549257">In reply to alsorun:</a></em></blockquote><p>This is a good question. Particularly for this build since Rafael takes them apart to see what really changed. And in this case it was almost nothing. Something minor related to containers. </p>

  • rob_segal

    Premium Member
    25 June, 2020 - 12:29 am

    <p>I look forward to your next Windows Insider build news story in 2021! :)</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    25 June, 2020 - 1:54 am

    <p>Something changed. The interaction between this latest build, VirtualBox and Universal Windows Tweaker produced black screens after applying tweaks. Fortunately, [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Delete] still worked to force logout. First time I've had this problem.</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    25 June, 2020 - 5:16 am

    <p>I have no problems with that. And no new features hopefully means they aren't wasting time on new bling bling and actually putting some polish on the things that are already in there, making the product better…</p><p>Well, one can hope!</p>

  • brendan_hallett

    25 June, 2020 - 6:00 am

    <p>Yes please</p><p><br></p>

  • madthinus

    Premium Member
    25 June, 2020 - 8:38 am

    <p>But Paul, writing words about nothing at all is the modern tech web!</p><p><br></p><p>Seriously though, super cool with skipping releases with nothing new to note or offer. </p>

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