We are now into our second full month of the new #WindowsInsiders Program channels for the flighting of testing builds from the Windows team at Microsoft.

Last month we looked at all the activity with builds across all three channels so I decided it could become a good monthly tradition and keep us all up to speed for posterity as well. Fair warning though, there might be some cross over between months depending on when this blog post goes live and when the last build of the month is released.

#DevChannel

The Developer Channel for 21H1 was the most active channel once again over the last five weeks.

Some of the new features that have been shipped over these past five builds include:

  • Tablet posture logic for 2-in-1 devices now applies to only single screen devices
  • Updated folder icon on the Start Menu
  • Updated the Default Apps search box for better performance
  • DNS settings are now a top-level option on the Network Properties page
  • Encrypted DNS controls in Settings app
  • ADMX backed policies for MDM
  • New post update experience (see my hands on of this new feature)
  • Improved Graphics Settings
  • Disk Management in Settings App

The list of fixes over these five builds total over 55 and that is only the documented fixes on the blog posts. No doubt, the team continues to work on a lot of stuff under the hood that is not in our field of view. Nothing abnormal about that at all.

As always, there are updates across these five builds about apps in Windows 10 with a lot of work happening on the Your Phone app once again this past month.

#BetaChannel

Just like in last month’s summary, three Cumulative Updates were released for 20H2 as it marches towards a release this fall for Windows 10 (Version 2004).

These updates are all about fixing bugs and improving stability, so no new features.

Microsoft announced that 20H2 is now available for business testing in preparation for the upcoming release which I expect will happen in October around Patch Tuesday. In addition, they have also released ISOs for this week’s build of 20H2 which are available on the Windows Insider website.

Whether you are in business or not, 20H2 is a very stable build and is supported by Microsoft in case there are any concerns about moving forward with the update. Since it is just a Cumulative Update, the download and installation processes are fast.

#ReleasePreviewChannel

The release preview channel continues to be a spot for testing the Cumulative Updates that are heading for Windows 10 (Version 2004) and is also a stable channel for daily use. The CU’s released for this channel are mirrors of those released for 20H2 since they are both the same code base of Windows 10 (Version 2004). The only difference is that the Release Preview Channels builds are 19041.xxx, while the 20H2 builds are 190423.xxx with the .xxx matching as builds are released in both channels.

Just like last month in this channel, just two updates were released.

Just like the CU’s for 20H2, these are bug and stability updates for the production version of Windows 10 which is currently Version 2004.

In Closing

Pretty standard and consistent fare in these three channels based on their focus. Steady and stable are good directions to be heading in for the development of Windows 10.

It will be interesting to see how the various channels shift after 20H2 is made available for the general public in a couple of months. Of course, we will be tracking that and keeping an eye on all of it!

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