Yet Another Windows 10 Build (10162) Points To Rapidly Approaching Release

It has been so long, some of you probably never thought it would ever arrive, but after nearly two strenuous days of waiting, the latest Windows 10 build (10162) has arrived in the Fast ring.

Joking aside, the rapid release of new Windows 10 builds to Windows Insiders is actually a good thing. Earlier this year, several weeks might have passed between Windows builds, but now they are coming every few days. (Builds 10158 and 10159 were both released this week.) The increased rate at which builds are released indicates that Windows 10 is becoming ever more stable, and as such, more builds are deemed safe for Windows Insiders to test drive.

It is likely that Microsoft is also devoting additional resources towards the development of Windows 10 as the release date approaches. Windows users excited for the release of Windows 10 can take this as a good sign that the new OS will be ready for release at the end of the month.

Currently, Build 10162 is only available to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring and is expected to hold down the fort over the Fourth of July weekend. The company wanted to let Fast ring users test out the system over the weekend to see if it was ready for release in the Slow ring early next week, so if you are in the Slow Ring, make sure to check back in a few days.

Microsoft indicated that, according to its testing, the latest build has better reliability, performance, battery life and compatibility than any previous Windows 10 build.

Despite all these improvements and the faster rate of build releases, people anticipating the release of Windows 10 on July 29 should remember that Microsoft is using a slow, guarded method of rolling out Windows 10. Windows Insiders will get the full OS on July 29, but most people will continue to wait through the first few weeks of August.

Follow Michael Justin Allen Sexton @LordLao74. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Michael Justin Allen Sexton is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers hardware component news, specializing in CPUs and motherboards.
  • jaber2
    Should we wait for final build then or do we just keep doing this over and over, feels like first day WoW came out, we had new patch every other day it seemed
    Reply
  • TechyInAZ
    Well, it would be nice if you could even upgrade to the newest windows 10 builds. :(

    My laptop with build 10130 will NOT go to next build, I download it and it freezes.
    Reply
  • Osmin
    I also encountered a problem moving past build 10130 on a virtual machine. I also noticed that the build update frequency kept resetting to slow each time you checked the setting. I was looking forward to the resizable start menu that was in a previous build and also an improvement to the graphical interface to make it look less tablet like. Desktops should have rich and powerful features that can not be easily duplicated on tablets/phones. That flat look Google made modern was acceptable on a tablet/phone to increase the speed and battery life. File compatibility was the main concept that needed attention. Why did the desktop OS need to be crippled for the sake of the tablet/phones?
    Reply
  • IInuyasha74
    Guys, I totally understand what you are saying. I spent a good 4-5 hours yesterday trying to update. Started with build 10074, that thing wasn't doing anything. Downloaded and installed 10130, messed with settings and did updates restarts for a few hours, never got past 10130 though. Not really sure what they changed in the update system, but that seems to be the most broken feature of Windows 10 anymore.
    Reply
  • anathema_forever
    Ya I am constantly wondering if my update system is going to break and I am going to have to reinstall OS lol. Never worried about that being what broke my installs before, used to be it was me installing to much junk.
    Reply
  • Math Geek
    had to reinstall mine few days ago and got stuck on version 9926 for a few days. it would not update to ANYTHING past 9926. finally got it to 10159 and now another new update.

    i can say that it looks and feels a million times better now than it did back in dec/jan time frame. still looking for more of a "normal" pc desktop and pc functionality but it's still a lot better than win 8.1 EVER was.
    Reply
  • grant barker
    Build 10162 installed fine for me. On my main machine the upgrade process has been smooth. I always delete the windows.old folder afterwards (with CCleaner). Like many of you I've installed a few builds via ISO to clean install, but now it's so close to final - I want to upgrade each time to help with the smoothing process. When the final release comes and I choose to opt out of the Insider club, I'll clean install.
    (I can't install Windows 10 on my old PC until they stop forcing an incompatible ethernet driver update which causes a disconnect. With Windows 8, we could ignore any updates we chose to ignore.)
    Reply
  • f-14
    driver support will arrive in 2018 once 50 million people have switched to windows 10 to make it worth while to manufacturers, which ever comes first.

    there's alot of windows 10 betas that are buggier then....... 10130 was immediately replaced in a few hours after thousands of complaints were lodged update was a failure. i happened to be reading microsofts forums when it happened looking for the kb articles on how to eliminate the win10 upgrade b.s. in my notification. just go to add remove programs and uninstall all recommended updates since feb/april everything recommended is nothing but b.s. garbage for windows10 d/l and bit torrent type sharing/seeding via windows media player network sharing service.
    Reply
  • TechyInAZ
    16170756 said:
    Guys, I totally understand what you are saying. I spent a good 4-5 hours yesterday trying to update. Started with build 10074, that thing wasn't doing anything. Downloaded and installed 10130, messed with settings and did updates restarts for a few hours, never got past 10130 though. Not really sure what they changed in the update system, but that seems to be the most broken feature of Windows 10 anymore.

    Same here, I spent a whole day trying to update. :(. I was forced to get an ISO of build 10159 from the Microsoft-news.com site so I could upgrade.
    However, windows 10 is still a technical preview so ill give Microsoft some slack.

    At least 10159 is way better and hopefully 10162.
    Reply
  • red77star
    Windows 10 what?
    Reply