Inside the Windows Insider Program

Bill KaragounisDirector of Program Management, Windows Insider Program & OS Fundamentals @billkar44

November 2016

The beginning

Windows 10 andInsider ProgramAnnounced

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

The Windows Insider Program todayFrom 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

Why Insiders?Long History of Beta ProgramsComplexity8.5M Unique Devices 21.2M Unique Apps[N] Configuration Options

LatencyBy 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)

(𝑛𝑟 )

Windows 7

Windows 8

Windows 8.1

Windows 10 (10240)

Windows 10 (10586)

Windows 10 (14xxx)

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400

Delta Start-First Public Delta First Public-RTM Delta RTM-GADevelopment Days

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

What happens behind the scenes?

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.

Windows As A Service

Microsoft Confidential

Release Preview

Release Preview“Released” OS

App Flights, Drivers

Ring Theory

Canary Daily builds

Windows & DevicesGroup ~3 per week

(rest of) MicrosoftOnce validated by

WIP Fast ringWindows Insiders –

Fast ~Weekly

Selfhost MicrosoftWindows InsidersFast

Canary Windows InsidersSlow

Windows Insiders - SlowOnce validated by Windows Insiders – Fast ring • Builds/content go to progressively larger audiences

MS InternalPublic

?

Ring Promotion Criteriai.e. Are the bits ready to go to the next ring?

Scenario Completion

Power UseResponsiveness

Feedback

CompatibilityAdoption

Reliability

Weekly Cadence (roughly…)

Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri

Final code check-insBuild ready

Flight to Canaryring

Media and Update

Packagesgenerated

Canary 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

But we also run a bunch of flights in parallel Daily Canary Flights, Selfhost 3X weekly

FlightOps:Post flightcheck-in

What is Mission Control?• One-stop shop for Windows

As A Service views• Central control for pre-

release flighting • Operations Dashboard and

Incident management

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

Mission Control – Measure View

Mission Control - Services

Thank you!