Windows 10: Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Skip Ahead Build 16362 for PC

The one on the left is the physical machine which was upgraded to 16362 from an ISO (took a chance and figured uuptoiso was cleaned) created in a VM. Note the expiration date of 7/2/2018. The one on the right is from a Hyper-V VM of 16353 which was upgraded to 16362. Note there is NO expiration date. Now it so happens that I "may" have successfully upgraded a Hyper-V VM or the physical machine running 16353. I used disk2vhd for this. It's at "working on updates 4% "and going very slowly. If it boots it will be interesting to see what that winver produces. Anybody else got a 16362 with no expiration date? That would seem to be a final release - exceot it states 1703. Quite strange.

 

Some games are kicking out of full screen and dropping to taskbar in this build. "Flying Tigers - Shadows Over China" is worst.

 

The Hyper-V VM created by disk2vhd upgraded "successfully" to 16362 from the original 16353 and winver showed the same as the physical machine with an expiration date of 7/22018. Why the quotes? Because this was the most bizarre upgrade eve. I wish I had a screen print of the original 16353 desktop but this new desktop looked exactly like a fresh install with the only exception that Start was still Start10 (but the Start 10 configuration was reset to factory!!). Nonetheless all the programs were seemingly still intact. Advanced System Care 11 found 2.2 GB of junk files but the registry was pretty clean with only 218 registry errors. I must say that I like the way the Windows Start Menu looks and am glad that Start 10 allows me to access it directly. A very interesting turn of event - I doubt I'll ever be able to explain it. But that's why I love this program.

 

Trouble on the home front here. Strange as it seems > I close all programs out using Alt/F4, then use the same key combo to shut down the PC as I've done on any machine for years. I noticed the other night that after I did I accidently hit a key and the system livened up as coming out of sleep. Sure enough, it wasn't shutting down but rather going to sleep. I then used the physical button and it shut down. This was in my CU partition.

Then I rebooted to my Insider partition and the same occurred. What the hay?!! I'm thinking this happened since this last update to 16362 on Wednesday and/or the CU cumulative update on Tuesday which I didn't perform until Wednesday.

What could possibly cause this?

Edit:

With experimenting some more, it seems the PC turns of using Alt/F4 and the physical power button, for when I use either one, then hit a key, it boots up to the boot menu, therefore I’ll have to assume it’s not sleeping. The keyboard and thumb drive lights go off as well. If I put it to sleep the thumb drive light goes off, but not the keyboard, which is understandable.

Unless this is some new feature, which I think it’s not, I’m stumped on this one. Any ideas?

 

Logics: there's no way a Skip Ahead build would make it to official 1709 release. It's absolutely clear that this current Skippy 16362 is not / will not be "RTM" of 1709, nor will any other Skippy build.

The official 1709 release will come from the normal Fast Ring fork, not from Skippy fork.

 

- I suspect that we skippers will know more after mid-October,
- when the need for a new branch will become more obviously slanted towards RS4

- quite rightly, Microsoft will be currently directing their focus on Fall Creator's Update
- the skippers might need to tread water for a while..

- patience is the watchword..*Think

 

This is almost certainly the case. I suppose it is conceivable they decide to merge Skippy and Fast as the RTM but this seems highly unlikely.

Non presence of a watermark or expiry date has no significance. During run in to RS2, we had a few builds without watermark etc, but never any explanation as to why - I can only assume poor QA checking.

 

Just a reminder from the 16288 release notes:

On Build 16288, you will notice that the watermark at the lower right-hand corner of the desktop has disappeared. You will also see that the OS now reports as “Version 1709” which is the official version number for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update release. However, this is NOT the final build as we’re not done yet. We’re just now beginning the phase of checking in final code to prepare for the final release. So we will have more builds to release to Windows Insiders between now and then. And the desktop watermark may re-appear in these builds.

 

I've just made my first foray into virtual machines, following Kari's tute (thanks, Kari)
I installed build 16288 on the VM from an ISO I had made, used the registry hack, and successfully updated to 16362. However, the installation is not activated. I'm aware that a virtual machine needs it own product key for a released version of Windows, but not so sure about Insider Previews. I'm dual booting Release and 16288 on this system and after having to re-install (due to a crash which destroyed the 2 system SSDs) the release version was activated in a chat session, and it is showing that I have a digital license. I installed Insider later, and that has picked up the digital license. I assumed that the skip ahead version I have on the VM would also pick up the DL, but no, not yet anyway. I am not motivated enough to purchase a genuine copy of W10 just to run an evaluation install on a VM. I haven't yet tried the 'phone in' method, will try that tomorrow if activation does not occur. Any other suggestions?

 

A virtual machine running on any host is its own entity, independent machine like any other physical or virtual machine on your network with its own unique hardware ID, the base for a Windows 10 digital license. It has nothing to do with Windows running on your host and its license. An Insider Preview build of Windows 10 will not be activated without a product key when clean installed on a new PC that has never had a licensed and activated version of Windows 10 installed before, the same naturally also applies to a virtual machine.

Expecting Windows 10 Insider Preview on a virtual machine being automatically activated based on host machine's digital license is the same than expecting Insider Preview on a desktop PC being activated because you already have digital license on your laptop. It will not happen, has never happened.

Short:

• Insider Preview build needs a license (product key) if no digital license exists for that machine, exactly as official releases. It simply is not true that Insider Preview does not need a license.
• Virtual machine, its hardware ID and digital license have nothing to do with your host and its hardware ID and digital license.
• Therefore, based on 1 & 2 above, a virtual machine needs its own license to be activated, its own product key. This applies to all versions of Windows 10, pre-release and official release.

More about Windows 10 hardware IDs on an earlier post of mine in another thread.

 

The myth that Insider versions do not need a licence is partly true inasmuch as those who participated in the original Technical Preview Programme could continue to use it activated even if they never had an original qualifying licence. However, once Windows 10 was formally released, new entrants to the Insider Programme were required to have an original qualifying licence (or a new 10 licence).

 

Thank you. I will probably just give up on running in a VM

 

This build is becoming radically weird as I work with it. I believe I will reset it and give it another shot.

 

Yes, I guess that was what was in the back of my mind. I've been an Insider since the beginning of Oct 2014. And that may explain why my current 16288 installation (which I dual boot) was automatically activated.

 

If you had an activated version of Windows 10 on device now or previously, it would activate automatically.