How many Insider version do you run, and why?

I have given up on all Insider versions rather than Dev.

Canary reminds me of Monty Python "Dead Parrot".
Beta is boring.
RP is like watching paint dry.

Also, I was taking up nearly 50% of my 1TB NVME drive, plus lots of time doing all the updates.

Just wonder what other regulars here think?

0, because I just don't really care about what's in testing and evaluation. I'd rather have stability and be used to what actually is, not what might or might not ever actually come to be.

I run Beta. I'm okay with boring.
I'm thinking about upgrading my other system to just regular old Windows 11 for stability.

I run one..., Canary..., cuz I thought it would be exciting but, I've been bored for 6 months now!!!

Zero. I maintain only the two computers listed in "My Computers" and I require stability for what I do.

Zero since Windows 10. I just lost interest in it and have aged past messing around with new stuff so I prefer stability. But that's on me, not MS and its new development.

I have a Parallels VM Dev on my Mac and a laptop on Canary.

I only use two, Beta and RP because they're generally stable and safe. Also Beta still allows me to get some new features earlier to try out. I'm not adventurous enough for Dev and Cannery builds lol.

Release Preview on my main install, because I like to get updates a bit earlier.
I run Beta and Canary on a VM.

None as a main install, I want stability for my main OS on each machine. But I do run Beta and Dev as native boot .vhdx installs on an unsupported 2-in-1 convertible laptop that has W10 as its main OS, and Canary and Beta as VMs. I give Release Preview a miss, it's only a week or so ahead of the General Availability channel anyway.

Edwin said:

I run one..., Canary..., cuz I thought it would be exciting but, I've been bored for 6 months now!!!

Click to expand...

I'm right there with you. I keep hoping it will get better but it doesn't look like it. If I didn't have to do a clean install I would drop out of the Canary ring. I do have older images I could use. The problem is that I have added so many new programs and made so many changes that it would still take me days to get it setup.

I am exclusively running Canary, hoping, with no good reason, that it will will "soon" morph into "Windows 1 2" development. Tolo lazy to reformat and try to install dev.

I'm partially in the same camp with glasskuter on this. I find myself not typically running any insider builds until we start getting closer to the release of the next major version. Only then do I jump in for a few months to start familiarizing myself with what's going on.

For example, I just now setup 3 VMs, one each running Preview, Beta, and Canary. I'll play with these very lightly until Win 11 23H2 is released, then I'll likely dump all of them and run no insider builds until next summer at about this time.

At least this way, I get familiar with what is about to be released and can hit the ground running taking advantage of new features as soon as they are released, and I get a little glimpse into the future direction being taken. But I no longer feel a need to tinker with it extensively on a daily basis.

I run Beta in main computer, and Canary in Hyper-V virtual machine.

RP on my desktop and Canary on my laptop. Both equally boring and waste of internet bits.

Canary, Beta and Dev on VM's via vhdx files - RP on a physical machine. As the VM's are on an external device I'm not "Wasting" storage on main machine. I like vhdx files since one can install different languages and apps rather than mess around on a single install.

Cheers
jimbo

hsehestedt said:

For example, I just now setup 3 VMs, one each running Preview, Beta, and Canary. I'll play with these very lightly until Win 11 23H2 is released, then I'll likely dump all of them and run no insider builds until next summer at about this time.

At least this way, I get familiar with what is about to be released and can hit the ground running taking advantage of new features as soon as they are released, and I get a little glimpse into the future direction being taken.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the reason I run Insider builds too, except that I chose to run Beta, Dev, and Canary. I regard Preview as being no more than a look one or two weeks into the future. Another difference is that I run my Beta and Dev on a physical test machine, with Canary as a VM.

1 only, the DEV channel, after staying for months on the Canary channel, I launched into a new installation of Windows.

With a copy and paste of the programs, data programs, users folders, it was pretty quick

Winuser said:

I'm right there with you. I keep hoping it will get better but it doesn't look like it. If I didn't have to do a clean install I would drop out of the Canary ring. I do have older images I could use. The problem is that I have added so many new programs and made so many changes that it would still take me days to get it setup.

Click to expand...

it goes with copy and paste of program folders, there is no need to reinstall programs, everything is quickly functional

cereberus said:

I have given up on all Insider versions rather than Dev.

Canary reminds me of Monty Python "Dead Parrot".
Beta is boring.
RP is like watching paint dry.

Also, I was taking up nearly 50% of my 1TB NVME drive, plus lots of time doing all the updates.

Just wonder what other regulars here think?

Click to expand...

3 just for fun, 75 GB each - so no real hassle. They are stuck away on a headless NAS server as VM's so updates not a problem. If I want to test one on a real machine cloning it to a physical machine doesn't take long and since they already have the physical drivers in them as well as the virtio stuff there's no problem -- just sometimes I need to re-install the bootloader.

The storage is on a 1GB NVME (ssd type) external device attached to the server via USBC in a NVME adapter not much bigger than a Cuban cigar.

What I do query is the number of people who use these as their everyday OS and then complain when they don't have a bootable computer.

I agree Ms has made a real dogs dinner of this stuff -- putting different functionality into each of the 3 channels is bonkers. There should be a progression Newest propagated to next newest and finally to what should be the most stable and nearest RTM.

Even in Linux builds there's logic excluding rolling releases - new release still being worked on like "daily / weekly updates"-->unstable->stable. Works fine -- Unstable just means that the daily build stuff has been partially tested and goes to unstable. When unstable is tested more rigoursly it goes to stable which is the release version. Not perfect but "does what it says on the tin" -- if you want to try out leading edge stuff etc OK - but you know you are dealing with at times even pre-alpha software so no surprise if it breaks .

Something with the insider program has gone totally bonkers now.

Cheers
jimbo