Microsoft's Development Branch Tweaks are Working

Today was a first for Microsoft.

They released Windows 10 Build 14271 for PCs and Windows 10 Mobile Build 14267.1004 to Windows Insiders on the Fast Ring for those platforms - the first time they have released new builds for both platforms on the same day.

The Windows 10 PC build is now the sixth new testing build in as many weeks and this release cadence is proving to be habitual instead of just a hopeful pattern of weekly releases/ Let me tell you Windows Insiders love getting these regular updates.

On the Windows 10 Mobile side, Build 14267.1004 follows just five days after the last mobile build, 14267, was released this past Friday.

While the mobile releases are no where close to the weekly pattern on the desktop side, this quick turn around update for Windows 10 Mobile is significant.

Both of these situations show that the tweaks they have made behind the scenes around their development branch build process is paying off.

For most of last year Microsoft spent a lot of time promising a faster release cadence for Insider builds and then explaining why they were not able to consistently deliver builds quickly like many Insiders wanted/expected.

Then late last year, as the December holiday period approached, Microsoft made a deliberate effort to focus their efforts on Windows OneCore, the common code base for the operating system, along with the tools and processes that are used in house for producing these test builds.

Over the last six weeks we have seen the fruits of those labors in the weekly release of new Insider Fast Ring builds and, while the first few were focused on stability, we are now seeing Redstone features emerge in the new builds.

More proof of this behind the scene efforts paying off is the companies ability to turn around and release a build to remedy a significant issue, no charging for Lumia 550 handsets, just five days after the flawed build was pushed out. By the way, two of those five days were over the weekend.

If you go over and read the details for PC Build 14271 and Mobile Build 14267.1004 you will see that the builds have their share of fixes and known issues but that is exactly what is expected as we get these fast ring builds.

This efficiency should translate over to the processes that are used to test and ship updates to the production builds of Windows 10 as well.

By the way, I am happy to report that it appears the power on issue we told you about last week on Build 14267 has been fixed in this latest update for Windows 10 on the desktop as well.

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.