[German]Microsoft has just announced that there will be a new Canary Channel in the Windows Insider program. What sounds like "even more chaos" might indicate that Redmond is preparing a playground for Windows Insiders to test Windows 12, which is expected sometime in 2024. Here is what we know so far about that.
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Microsoft has just started "re-rolling" its Windows Insider channels. Users can leave the Windows Insider program and switch to the "stable build" without reinstalling Windows 10/11 (see Stop receiving insider builds for Windows 10, and How to Switch from Insider to a Stable Build of Windows 11).
New Windows Insider channel
It was announced a few hours ago by the Windows Insider Program – see the following tweet – there is a new Canary Channel in the Insider Program.
Microsoft explains the details in the article What's coming for the Windows Insider Program in 2023. The "continous innovation delivering für Windows 11" will probably still come in March 2022 (see also the following section). For this, the Dev Channel will be "relaunched" so that Insiders can test Microsoft's latest "innovations".
At the same time, a new Canary Channel will be introduced to support preview builds of platform changes. Here, Microsoft plans to preview platform changes that require a longer lead time before being released to customers. Examples include major changes to the Windows kernel, new APIs, etc. This is intended to be similar to what we have seen available in the Dev Channel in the past.
Preparation for Windows 12?
At twitter users are asking which Insider Preview channel they shall using. I read also the question, whether Microsoft intends to drive participants out of the Insider Program. Since the Canary Channel is supposed to receive builds from the 25000 development branch, observers like Tom Warren (see the following tweet, thanks to the anonymous user for pointing it out, and this article) suspect that this channel will be used for the expected Windows 12.
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Currently, however, this may not yet so name, and writes of "kernel and API changes" to Windows (without version number) in this channel the speech, which one wants to test. I assume that in a few weeks or months the announcement will come that Windows 12 will be tested in the Canary Channel. This seems to confirm the hints about Windows 12 that I mentioned in various blog posts (see link list below).
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This system is too damm Autocratic.