Microsoft halts Windows 10 beta channel

The “further development” of Windows 10 is now obviously coming to a standstill almost a year before the final end of support. Microsoft has stopped the beta channel for the old operating system, which was revived just a few months ago.

After five months it’s over again – finally

The software company Microsoft caused quite a surprise last year when it announced that it wanted to deliver new features for the aging but still widely used Windows 10. After all, the “end of life” of the operating system is already imminent in October 2025.

Eleven months before the date on which support for Windows 10 will end, Microsoft has now announced the end of the beta channel of the Windows Insider Program. With the new beta build released yesterday, the beta channel ends just five months after it was reopened to test the features mentioned at the beginning.

No more beta builds of Windows 10

Microsoft actually gave up the beta channel for Windows 10 in the Insider program in 2022 in order to concentrate entirely on testing new features for Windows 11. The aim of the reopening was to test the innovations ported from Windows 11 to Windows 10. In one Blog post The development team confirmed that there will be no further beta builds of Windows 10.

In the future, there will only be new builds in the release preview channel of the Insider program for Windows 10, it said. So there are still preliminary versions for the old operating system, even if it is becoming increasingly likely that the release preview channel will soon be discontinued. In any case, there haven’t been any major improvements or new features that Microsoft has tested for Windows 10 that are particularly helpful for users.

Instead, they only integrated the often unpopular Copilot integration and new advertising and upselling measures around MSN, OneDrive and Microsoft 365, which should now ensure that it is best to offer a few online subscriptions to Windows 10 users can sell.

Anyone who is currently a participant in the beta channel of the Insider Program for Windows 10 will be automatically moved to the release preview channel by Microsoft in the coming days. The official end of support for Windows 10 will be on October 14, 2025, even if Microsoft will then allow private customers to continue to receive at least security updates for the old operating system for money.