Bill Karagounis, Director of Program Management of Windows shares the history and inner workings of the Windows Insider Program.

1. Inside the
Windows Insider
Program
Bill Karagounis
Director of Program Management, Windows
Insider Program & OS Fundamentals
@billkar44 November 2016

2. The beginning
Windows 10 and
Insider Program
Announced
First Preview Build
Feb 2014
9/21/2014
May 20149/30/14
10/1/14
Windows Insider/OS Flighting
investigation green lit
First Insider Program Plans Presented
Terry Myerson (Windows and Devices
team Exec VP) expands to “Everyone”
Panic Ensues, Rebuild entire
Feedback stack to scale

3. The Windows Insider Program today
From our recent Insider survey:
• 46% are in IT, SW Development, or Engineering
• 13% of Insiders support small companies (<4 PCs)
• 14% of Insiders support large companies (>5K PCs)
• 20% are Students (and 1/5 of those in high school!)
• 88% helped upgrade people to Windows 10
• 9 in 10 satisfied with Windows Insider Program

4. Why Insiders?
Long History of Beta Programs
Complexity
8.5M Unique Devices
21.2M Unique Apps
[N] Configuration Options
Latency
By the time people saw our work, it was too late to give feedback
Easily exceeds the number of atoms
in the observable universe
(Fortunately in the real world these things tend to cluster, but it’s still a big set)

5. 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 8.1
Windows 10 (10240)
Windows 10 (10586)
Windows 10 (14xxx)
Development Days
Delta Start-First Public Delta First Public-RTM Delta RTM-GA
15 public PC previews and 7 Mobile previews before launch
2 public previews
3 public previews
1 public preview
6 public PC previews and 6 Mobile previews before launch
29 public PC previews and 28 Mobile previews
Windows Development in the open

7. New builds
and delivery
systems
Windows
Insiders
New feedback
Aggressively
pushing builds.
Insiders get
to run the
latest
product and
tell us what
they think.
Monitor
user
feedback to
understand
quality in
real-world
scenarios.
W A A S

8. Microsoft Confidential
Release Preview
Release Preview
“Released” OS
App Flights, Drivers
Ring Theory
Canary
Daily builds
Windows & Devices
Group ~3 per week
(rest of) Microsoft
Once validated by
WIP Fast ring
Windows Insiders – Fast
~Weekly
Selfhost MicrosoftWindows Insiders
Fast
Canary Windows Insiders
Slow
Windows Insiders - Slow
Once validated by Windows
Insiders – Fast ring

9. Ring Promotion Criteria

10. Weekly Cadence (roughly…)
Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
Final code check-ins
Build ready
Flight to Canary
ring
Selfhost
FlightOps:
Push to Insiders?
FlightOps:
Health check/
trends/issues
WIP Fast
FlightOps:
Push to Selfhost ring?
C C C C CC C S S SS
FlightOps:
Post flight
check-in

11. What is Mission Control?
• One-stop shop for Windows As
A Service views
• Central control for pre-release
flighting
• Operations Dashboard and
Incident management

12. Mission Control - upgrade
• Updates and velocity of
updates are important to us
• Look for upgrade blockers or
issues with Insiders being able
to move forward

13. Mission Control – Measure View

14. Mission Control - Services

16. Thank you!