I’m excited to announce that our first build of Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones is available now for Windows Insiders! The team here has been working hard to get this out to you and we know that you’ve been waiting patiently since we announced that it was coming. This is a long post, but there is a lot of important information so if you want to jump in and install the preview on your phone I really encourage you to read it completely.
Since we’re building Windows 10 to be the same core platform for PCs, tablets and phones, it should be no surprise that participating in the program for phones will work pretty much the same way it has been working for PCs.
Since it is a shared codebase, you should expect that builds for PCs, tablets and phones will be generally timed to come out at the same time, but they may not always be the same day or same build number, since sometimes a bug will affect one but not the other and we may take another build to fix it.
This is the earliest publicly available preview we’ve ever done for Windows on phones. This preview is still very much under development and you’re going to see some rough edges. We’re sharing it with you so you can be with us at every step, and provide your feedback to help make this the best release ever—because it’s the one made for you. You will encounter bugs. You will see experiences that are clearly just not done yet, and UX that lacks polish at this point. DON’T WORRY! It will improve as we go and new features, stability and performance improvements, and more polished UX will come at each step.
You will likely feel like this first preview build for phones seems “less complete” or “earlier” than the PC. That’s true—it is. Although Windows 10 is built on shared code that runs on both PCs and phones, keep in mind that Windows 8.1 for PC was finished months earlier than Windows Phone 8.1, so the PC build has had more bake time. But we’re not worried about getting a great final product out or the progress we’re making. Much of our work until this point has been on platform development rather than the completeness of the UI, so a lot isn’t immediately visible – like the fact that we have a common OS core and app platform across PC and phones. But those ‘fundamentals’ represent a ton of work and are going to enable a lot of cool things to come, like apps that work seamlessly across devices, consistent manageability of devices, and the ability to run a whole new generation of Office Universal Apps on all of your Windows 10 devices.
If you’re a Windows Phone customer and love to try the latest stuff before anyone else, or a Developer or IT Pro who works with Windows Phones, joining the Windows Insider program and trying out this build may be right for you. You’ll be getting an insider’s view and getting builds that normally would have only been available to Microsoft engineers in the past.
There are also some things Joe showed that will be coming in future builds. For example, our Office team has built some great features into new universal apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which work across phones, tablets, and PCs running Windows 10. Although they are not included in this build, you will see them coming soon. In upcoming builds we’ll also include the new Mail and Calendar Universal Apps from the Outlook team in Office, as well as IP-based messaging from Skype and others, integrated directly into Messaging experience.
We know that some things will also look like a step back. This includes Cortana. Because of the work we’re doing to converge across PC and phones, Cortana in this build will be limited to US-only and English-only and some of the features you use in Windows Phone 8.1 aren’t yet enabled in this new codebase. Once again, DON’T WORRY! Cortana will be more powerful and capable in Windows 10 than ever before, with more capabilities and language support than ever before. Windows Insiders will see those changes come alive in future builds. You can see more about Cortana in Windows 10 here.
This is still an early build and while there are many things that work great, there are also known bugs and things that just don’t work quite right yet. Remember that you’re seeing a work in progress, and a huge goal of the Windows Insider program is to work with a large community of people to provide feedback. Here are the big issues that we think you should know about for this build. In most cases a fix is coming in a future build, but a few have workarounds you can try in the meantime.
The most important thing for us is that we want to make sure that anyone who tries this early preview has a way to get back to their prior OS if something goes wrong. So we’re only supporting phones for the preview that have a recovery image available. We created a new tool called the Windows Phone Recovery Tool that will restore that image if necessary.
We haven’t bricked a single phone during all of our internal testing, but it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE, so you should be aware that there is some potential risk for you. In addition, bugs could prevent access to important features for you, including phone dialing and other core functionality.
For these devices we support configurations from almost all mobile operators around the world, the most notable exception is China which isn’t yet supported for the first preview.
Note that this doesn’t mean that Windows 10 will take more disk space than Windows Phone 8.1, it’s just a function of the upgrade process at this point. Once the partition stitching feature is completed, many more devices will be supported.
Instructions on how to join the Windows Insider program and get your phone set up are available on the Windows Insider website at http://insider.windows.com. As with this post, I recommend that you read the instructions carefully so you can upgrade easily and comfortably.
Once you’re up and running, use the Feedback app to send us reports on any problems you hit as well as suggestions for things that you think we should add or change. If you’re using Windows 10 on your PC this app will look super familiar to you, since as a Universal App it’s the exact same code you’ve been using already.
You can launch the app from the tile, but the easiest way to access it is simply to press and release the power + volume down buttons to launch it from anywhere.
The Windows Insider Community forum at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider is a great way to connect with others, get tips and advice, and help solving problems.
We continue to be humbled and excited about the passion that we’ve seen from our Windows Insiders since we launched the program. Your feedback is helping us make better products with your needs and desires in mind. We’re incredibly excited to expand the program to Windows 10 for phones, and deeply appreciate your involvement and support as we build Windows 10.
Stay tuned to the Windows Blog for announcements on forthcoming builds for phones and PCs, and follow me on Twitter @gabeaul for more news and tips.