Microsoft Edge Dev Preview Builds Now Available for Older Windows Versions

Microsoft released the new Chromium-based Edge browser on older versions of Windows last week. The company only released builds on the Canary channel for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 at first. And it’s now releasing builds on the Dev channel for the older versions of Windows.

Microsoft stated that the company is aiming to reduce fragmentation by releasing the new Edge browser when it first launched the browser on older Windows releases last week. “Delivering the next version of Microsoft Edge to all supported versions of Windows is part of our goal to improve the web browsing experience for our customers on every device, and to empower developers to build great experiences with less fragmentation,” Microsoft wrote. The Dev channel obviously includes more stable builds than the daily updated Canary builds, so you should get a fairly stable browsing experience if you do decide to use the Dev release.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The company released a major update for the browser on the Dev channel yesterday, with some important upgrades to the dark theme. And if you are on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1, you can try out the new Edge Preview Dev builds from the official site here. 

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 5 comments

  • CaedenV

    27 June, 2019 - 7:09 am

    <p>reading before coffee is hard lol</p><p>I read the first few lines as meaning that they had previously released for 8.x and 7, and now they are releasing for even older versions of windows. That woke me up, and then on a re-read I was disappointed :(</p>

  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    27 June, 2019 - 2:06 pm

    <p>Excellent news. We're one step closer to me being able to tell some customers that they can still use the official Microsoft browser.. It just won't be Internet Explorer</p><p><br></p><p>Lots are on remote desktop servers. So there's never even been regular Edge available there anyway 🙁 Many are also on Server 2012 R2 (effectively Windows 8.1) so even with Windows 7 (and Server 2008 R2) going out of support soon, this will still have life for a few years anyway.</p>

  • darkgrayknight

    Premium Member
    27 June, 2019 - 4:34 pm

    <p>Anyone try this on Vista or XP? Just wondering if it limits the install.</p>

  • robincapper

    28 June, 2019 - 12:57 am

    <p>I wonder if this only exists because previously the only way to sync browser settings (bookmarks) etc across Win 7, 8, 10 for a single user was to use Chrome!</p>

    • dontbe evil

      29 June, 2019 - 5:19 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438235">In reply to robincapper:</a></em></blockquote><p>What about firefox? Opera?… </p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC