Microsoft provides “one stop shopping” for all Insider programs on this web page

2 min. read

Published on July 2, 2019

published on July 2, 2019

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Following the launch of the Windows Insider Program in late 2014, Microsoft has been pursuing a wide “insidering” effort across the company, with new Insider programs for Office, Skype, Xbox, and more. This actually happened so fast that it’s actually hard to keep up with all the various Insider programs that the company created over the years.

Fortunately, the software giant has now put all information about its various Insider programs on a single web page, which was shared on Twitter today by Microsoft Partner Program Manager Scott Hanselman.

One stop shopping for ALL Microsoft Insiders programs! Free to join https://t.co/Cb3hyyZPUB

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) July 2, 2019

This may have passed under your radar, but Microsoft has launched Insider programs for Bing as well as Visual Studio Code in recent years. The last Insider program Microsoft launched is for the new version of Microsoft Edge, which is now based on the open-source Chromium project. Since its official launch in April, the Edge Insider Program has become pretty active with the Canary and Dev channels giving us new builds at a regular pace.

On the Windows Insider side, the program has now crossed more than 16.5 million members this year, but it looks like some changes are incoming. For the first time ever, Microsoft recently made Fast Ring Insiders skip the next Windows 10 update (19H2) to test the first feature update coming in 2020. As for the 19H2 update, the first preview build shipped to Slow Ring Insiders yesterday, and Microsoft explained that this minor update will install just like a regular cumulative update when it’s released later this Fall.

The Windows Insider program isn’t the only one that went through some changes in recent years, as the Xbox Insider program went from an invite-only structure to a more complex organization with five different Insider rings. It’s nice that all information about Microsoft’s Insider programs can be found in one single place, but all programs keep their specificities and it certainly take some time to figure out how to use them best.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web. Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they're looking for.