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Server Insider: lack of attention / releases
I really feel that the Server side of Windows Insider isn't getting enough attention - They stopped making blog posts for many releases (or any form of heads up that a new build got uploaded at t...
- New build just dropped, sorry for the delays
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-server-insiders/announcing-windows-server-preview-build-26040/m-p/4040858
I tend to agree. However, summer is in full swing and people are on holiday.
But it's been like this for pretty long, my idea of it is that the Server insider program has been neglected for at least a year. Maybe summer of 2022 (1 year ago) was the last period there have been consistent builds, is it possible that the team in charge back then had @Mary Hoffman in it, and that the entire team got replaced by one that takes it less seriously, or pays less attention? Or maybe the team has been cut out and as it's now on the plate of another team that has a lot of things to do, like the main insider program? It's all speculation until someone tells us what's up, but either way its indicative of that Microsoft no longer really cares about the Server side of insider program, so no priority or adequate staffing is provided.
very unfortunately I can second that. And there seems there are hard contrasts within the story.
Went the extra mile today and brought all own feedback and issues - that are not apparently triaged / replied or solved over from here to feedback hub.
Feedback hub - even if recommended at every Insider release, is effectively barely used.
When I looked into English and german submissions (they are not visible forever anymore) 80-90% was no quality feedback (as per definition) that I believe the WS PG could really work on, not mention spam.
It would be great to have the feedback hub appx on Windows Server. This would ease things, especially issue reports and logs for them. Asked for further instruction how they could collaborate with it best: https://aka.ms/AAohsx0
Let's hope, that the teams weren'taffected too much of the 2023 layoffs.
Yet what you both describe feels similar for Windows Client OS. The very developer / sprint minded staging of changes makes it near impossible to stay tuned. Much simpler in Windows Server while often we get no change logs at all.
Contrary if we follow the Grande announcements of Jeff_Woolsey_MSFT and Elden_Christensen,
recordings available here, then together with some spotlights here and there it migtht be hard to grasp the efforts and consistency on this super complex topic.All we can hope is that the next 9-11 months of time serve good enough that all feedback will be incorporated as much as possible or later via CUs, so we won't lose too much in terms of UX in the vNext, as it is a huge leap forward. I am not looking for a "Windows Server 2025 R2", rather want to have a great "Windows 11" based build from the start, and with all feedback raised, I believe it is very possible in the remaining time. Some changes are really minimal but bring huge UX improvement over previous versions, and honestly UX is still something users are looking for.
I beg to differ that most users are not big corporations and have few admins in a team that are still not into PowerShell after a decade of warm-up and they rely heavily on the readiness and capability of UX in Windows Server, Windows Admin Center. Especially when you help them to adopt a remote management of "Window Server Core first" without security risky RDP hopping, and moreover getting them off their old stuff, which finally (2016 or newer) allows all remote management capabilities out of the box.
Hope this all is considered, when thinking about admins. Some just became Windows Server Admin "by fortune" or "accident" - greetings to the lasting slogan of Carl Stalhood - now retired.
2025 is an important year for Windows Server. Hope this cheered you dhessel sjkpublic up a bit with your initiatives for vNext . It takes a long time sometimes to gather the fruits, even when they appear as long hanging ones, it remains hard for us to understand complications behind the scenes.
Communication and transparency helps if they have the time.
It's worth mentioning that i made this topic during a period where the insider program for Windows Server was totally, and literally, abandoned.. where it wasn't unusual to see no builds for months at a time, or 6+ months. This is no longer currently the situation, as late 2023 has seen regular updates (weekly or bi-weekly, as Elden_Christensen has indicates is how its supposed to be. Therefore, my hard criticism from the OP is no longer actual, however, given that Microsoft is a big, bureaucratic company where a lot of processes happen all the time, we have no guarantee that the insider program for Windows Server doesn't get fully abandoned again in the future. I reiterate it's not currently so, but i hope it doesn't happen. If it happens, we can bring this topic back to life and try to get a MS engineer's attention. I'd say let it rest until we face that day.
Like i said, late 2023 is when the program came back to life. I'd like to think that this topic helped to get someone to notice that it had to return to being actively maintained by an active, caring team. And that so, it happened.
