Microsoft announce changes to Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds

As Microsoft get closer to the July 29^th release date of Windows 10 they have announced changes to the Windows Insider program. Starting with the next build you will need to have the Microsoft Account you registered for the Windows Insider program connected to your PC. I imagine most people already are doing this as you need to have a Microsoft account to get apps from the Windows Store. The reason Microsoft are doing this is that there are changes to Windows Update to enable new builds for Windows Insiders.

Windows Insiders will receive the final release build of Windows 10 on July 29^th and Microsoft have said that once you have activated your PC with the final release you can do a clean install of Windows 10 if you like.

Once Windows 10 is released July 29^th Windows Insiders that are opted in will continue to get updates and new features of Windows 10, you can opt out of the program and opt in later if you like.

Part of the changes in the next build include that the Insider Hub won’t be part of the Windows 10 installation so if you want to add it in you have to add it as an optional features.

Also in the next release the browser currently called Project Spartan will get its official name “Microsoft Edge” and as a result of the name changes favourites, history, cookies and reading lists won’t get carried forward to the new release. So if you want to keep your current setup you will need to backup your existing settings before the next release:

If you want to keep these, you will need to back up your favorites before the next flight! To save your favorites, follow these steps before upgrading to the next build we release (do it now):

Copy your favorites from %localappdata%/Packages/Microsoft.Windows.Spartan_cw5n1h2txyewy/AC/Spartan/User/Default/Favorites.

Save them to %userprofile%/Favorites.

After upgrading to the next build open Microsoft Edge, choose Settings, and you’ll see an option to import favorites from another browser. Choose Internet Explorer to import the favorites you saved in your %userprofile% directory into Microsoft Edge.

I am hoping to see a new build sometime next week, there are still plenty of issues with Windows 10 and July 29^th is beginning to look very close!