KB5004123 CU Windows 10 Insider Preview Dev Build 21390.2025 - June 14 Insider

larc919 said:

If somebody had been on a Windows build that is still viable before going to the DEV Channel and had kept a good system backup made before the move, going back should be a simple matter. Just restore and then catch up with updates. That might involve a significant amount of time and work depending on how far back the switchover was done, but it would be better than having to reinstall every app and redo any custom settings. I hate doing clean installs, so always make a Macrium backup before doing anything that I may ever need or want to back out of.

In my case... opting out of Dev channel is like.... deleting the Insiders partition. i made Insiders Dev out of my main system (Macrium Image), dual booting, sharing all my personal data. Nothing that i would miss by deleting Insiders system ... or both, and restoring any of them from Images

larc919 said:

If somebody had been on a Windows build that is still viable before going to the DEV Channel and had kept a good system backup made before the move, going back should be a simple matter. Just restore and then catch up with updates. That might involve a significant amount of time and work depending on how far back the switchover was done, but it would be better than having to reinstall every app and redo any custom settings. I hate doing clean installs, so always make a Macrium backup before doing anything that I may ever need or want to back out of.

I totally agree 100%. And this is my policy and that is also why I always put a comment in the MR's prompt to know exactly where I was at when doing a system image backup, be it full or differential —BTW, I put my preference to "Differential" over "Incremental" . LOL

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AndreTen said:

In my case... opting out of Dev channel is like.... deleting the Insiders partition. i made Insiders Dev out of my main system (Macrium Image), dual booting, sharing all my personal data. Nothing that i would miss by deleting Insiders system ... or both, and restoring any of them from Images

Very close to your method, in my case, the active branch of the Dev Channel is on a Hyper-V VM. In a way, I am not even subscribed to it in the real sense of the term, meaning I can get out of it very easily.

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martyfelker said:

If you want to opt out and still keep a version of Windows you WILL need to reformat.

f14tomcat said:

Re-install, clean install. Not necessarily reformat the drive, although some do because they want to. It's sufficient to delete the partition and supporting partitions on the clean install. Opting out of Insider does not imply a reformat nor is that stated anywhere I know of. If MS says you must reformat your drive to Opt Out, I would like to see the Microsoft Documentation that states that.

kado897 said:

There is no published way of getting out of the Dev channel without a re-install as it is now never on the same build as any other channel.

kado897 said:

Yep, but that's what some people call a re-install.

Berton said:

Not always, saving files and apps choice may not.

This discussion about Reformat Vs Reinstall and leaving the technical preview Vs the Active branch of the Dev channel has brought to bear my curiosity to the point of doing some research on the matter. The experience has been most enlightening and what I can say goes like this:

If you've installed an Insider Preview build in the Beta Channel or Release Preview Channel, switching between channels is easy. But if you have installed a build in the Dev Channel, because it is not tied to a specific release, you will have to do a clean install of Windows and reset your Windows Insider settings on that device to switch.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/win...tween-channels

With respect to leaving the technical previews (Insider program), TF has a good well-written documentation about how to do just that. I know most Gurus and Pro-users in this forum already know that:

How to Leave Windows Insider Program to Unregister Account

How to Change Windows Insider Program Channel in Windows 10

The confusion boils down to what one considers being a Reinstall or a Reformat. Personally, I have never considered restoring an image from a system image backup using MR as a "Reformat", but in the background that's kinda what's happened. It all depends on the way one considers the action taken. To that end, I can only say this:

While “reformatting” refers to a specific operation, in this situation, it refers to any technique used to erase or overwrite everything on the hard disk. Reinstall Windows from scratch. This typically means booting from a Windows setup disk and letting the setup program do its thing.

How Do I Reformat and Reinstall Windows? - Ask Leo!

Thanks for all the research, do appreciate it. Guess I'm from the old school where reformat means this, and only this:

IronZorg89 said:

I totally agree 100%. And this is my policy and that is also why I always put a comment in the MR's prompt to know exactly where I was at when doing a system image backup, be it full or differential —BTW, I put my preference to "Differential" over "Incremental" . LOL

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Very close to your method, in my case, the active branch of the Dev Channel is on a Hyper-V VM. In a way, I am not even subscribed to it in the real sense of the term, meaning I can get out of it very easily.

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This discussion about Reformat Vs Reinstall and leaving the technical preview Vs the Active branch of the Dev channel has brought to bear my curiosity to the point of doing some research on the matter. The experience has been most enlightening and what I can say goes like this:



https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/win...tween-channels

With respect to leaving the technical previews (Insider program), TF has a good well-written documentation about how to do just that. I know most Gurus and Pro-users in this forum already know that:

How to Leave Windows Insider Program to Unregister Account

How to Change Windows Insider Program Channel in Windows 10

The confusion boils down to what one considers being a Reinstall or a Reformat. Personally, I have never considered restoring an image from a system image backup using MR as a "Reformat", but in the background that's kinda what's happened. It all depends on the way one considers the action taken. To that end, I can only say this:



How Do I Reformat and Reinstall Windows? - Ask Leo!

In fact I mispoke when I said reformat. I should have said one wouldl have to delete the DEV partition.

martyfelker said:

In fact I mispoke when I said reformat. I should have said one wouldl have to delete the DEV partition.

That will work!