Microsoft, It’s Time to Open Up Windows 10 S to Insiders (Premium)

Microsoft is trying to transition the Windows user base to a safer, more reliable, and better-performing platform that, in turn, is less compatible with the past. Here's an idea, Microsoft: Let your most loyal fans test it to find out what works, and what doesn't.

I know, heretical.

I have a number of issues with Windows 10 S and the way that Microsoft has maintained a lock on its coverage. Consider, for example, that Windows 10 S is only available on a single device that any normal person would want to use, the Surface Laptop. And that that laptop has not been made available to me (and, I'm sure, many others) for review, despite several explicit requests. This means that I have no meaningful way to examine and report on the first major new version of Windows in years, despite having spent over 20 years writing about, wait for it, Windows. That harms me professionally, and it hurts my ability to communicate what's really happening to readers. So, thanks for that, Microsoft.

But this isn't personal. Windows 10 S is a big deal, and it's worthy of debate. It's important. And when you care about Windows as much as I do, have spent so much time focused on just this one thing, as I have, you realize that this is make or break for the platform. This has to work.

But it's not working.

On the one hand, I appreciate what Microsoft is doing to push its platform to a more secure, reliable, and better-performing future, and I've opined in the past that this effort---Windows 10 S---represents nothing less than the future of Windows.

On the other, Windows 10 S is a disaster from a compatibility perspective. So much so that one might argue that anything that cannot run Windows desktop applications---which are just "apps" in Microsoft's view---is not, in fact, Windows. Surely there is a middle ground between Microsoft's semi-fanatical view on Windows 10 S and the more practical compromise(s) I've suggested in the recent past.

If only there were some solution to this dilemma. Some way of, I don't know, testing this system in the real world with millions of people instead of the thousands---maybe just hundreds---who have purchased a Surface Laptop and then upgraded immediately to Windows 10 Pro (for free) because it just works.

Oh, right. There is: The Windows Insider program. "The millions who represent the needs of the billions," as Microsoft's Dona Sarkar so ably explains. (This kind of clarity is needed elsewhere at Microsoft, for sure, but let's stick to the script here.)

Sure, the Insider program has its issues---the Anniversary Update still went out the door with major issues last year, suggesting some changes needed to be made---but then beta testing always has blind spots. For the decades I've been writing about Microsoft, I've seen the same thing again and again: Some version of Windows is tested in some way with some number of testers, and deemed ready for the public. And then it's released to the public and all hell bre...