Under the pre-Windows 10 system, a big update meant commercial customers not only had to focus on the potential upgrade process but also plan and prepare for end-user training on the invariably-overhauled operating system's user interface.Įven with anticipated downtime for machine upgrades and user training, there was usually an uptick in support tickets as users learned their way around the new user interface for the Windows upgrade. Looking back at the history of Windows 10, one of the big differences around Windows 10 was Microsoft’s shift from big upgrades released approximately every 36 months to incremental updates released more regularly. In February 2017, Microsoft announced the Windows Insider Program for IT Pros and Businesses, which included enterprise-friendly management tools for the pre-release builds and centralized bug and feedback reporting for the organization. This initial version of the Windows Insider Program was focused on consumers, but enterprise and business customers could still sign up and test these development builds. In September 2014, after announcing Windows 10 to the public, the company announced a new Windows Insider Program that gave customers much earlier access to development builds for testing, thus allowing data to return to the dev team much earlier than before. So Microsoft had bug reports and data they could not act on to improve the product before it went to market – a frustrating situation for all involved. While the public preview programs proved to be very popular and brought in a lot of usage data and bug reports, by Microsoft’s own admission it was too late to integrate those adjustments into the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build prior to general availability. The private beta programs allowed Microsoft to collect critical feedback on the user interface, usability, and bugs at a time, which allowed those fixes to be incorporated into the code base for that Windows release. Previous versions of Windows were tested by external Microsoft customers through a private beta program, public preview testing, or a combination of both. Microsoft has unveiled the future of Windows this month to its customers and while that history is about to be written, looking back at the history of Windows 10, Windows As A Service (WaaS), and Windows management should help put the upcoming changes into perspective. Next month will mark the sixth anniversary of the general availability of Windows 10, and it has been an interesting journey compared to previous versions of Microsoft Windows.
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