Microsoft Sets An Expiration Date on Older Windows Insider Builds

As you may have seen, Microsoft released a new Windows 10 build today to Windows Insiders on the Fast ring. But that release also came with a warning, of sorts: If you’re still using older Insider builds, it’s time to upgrade.

“Insider Preview builds have expiration dates,” Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar reminded Insiders today.

And that means that anyone still running older Insider builds is in for a bit of a surprise.

Starting on September 15, 2016 (tomorrow), anyone still running “really old Insider Preview builds”—not sure exactly which ones—will start to see build expiration notifications once per day. Then, on October 1, those PCs will start automatically rebooting every 3 hours. Finally, on October 15, those PCs will no longer boot at all.

The solution? Simple: Upgrade to build 14926, which was just released.

This build, like all pre-release Windows builds, also has an expiration date. But as Ms. Sarkar explains, that date is pretty far off: May 1, 2017.

There is one caveat.

“If your PC is running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Build 14393) in the Slow and Release Preview rings today – this does not apply to you and you will not be notified of your build expiring.”