Microsoft's Windows development team has been left red-faced today after a mistake led to internal builds of Windows 10 on both PC and mobile devices being released publicly. These weren't just builds launching earlier than expected, they were builds never intended to reach the public.
Dona Sarkar, a software engineer working in the Windows and Devices Group, explained what happened in a post on the official Windows blog. The internal builds managed to make their way on to end user devices due to, "an inadvertent deployment to the engineering system that controls which builds/which rings to push out to insiders."
Although specific figures aren't being given, Sarkar said only a "small portion" of Windows Insiders received the rogue builds of Windows. Those that did will now be suffering some inconvenience, or even a temporarily bricked device in some cases.
For anyone who received the internal PC build of Windows 10, Microsoft is working to release a new build as soon as possible. However, that could take several days and definitely won't happen this week. The previous legitimate build can be rolled back to via Settings > Update & security > Recovery, but that will only work if you haven't deleted previous Windows installation files (achieved by running Disk Cleanup).
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The situation is potentially much worse for anyone who received the rogue mobile build. Any device it is installed on will be stuck in a reboot loop and unusable. The fix involves using the Windows Device Recovery Tool and re-flashing your handset. Once that's done you have to re-join the Windows Insider Program and download a new build.
In the case of the mobile build, some non-Windows Insiders devices may have also received it by mistake. It won't install on those devices, so you should be fine.
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