Recently, Microsoft rebranded the consumer-facing version of Office 365 to Microsoft 365, followed by further name changes in enterprise products. Now, the company is also changing the names of the update channels for the Microsoft 365 suite of apps on Windows devices. A new update channel, the Monthly Enterprise Channel, had also been introduced last month.
As such, there are now six different update channels, including two for Insiders, but now there are some different names. First, there is the Beta channel, which was first known as the Fast ring of the Office Insider program, but was simply referred to as Insiders prior to this change. Meanwhile, the Monthly Channel (Targeted), born as the Slow ring, is becoming Current Channel (Preview). Both of these rings offer early access to features, with the Current Channel (Preview) offering more stability, while the Beta channel gets more frequent updates.
For those that aren"t in the Office Insider program, the Monthly Channel has become the Current Channel, as you"d expect. This is for users who want finalized and stable features but want them as soon as they"re ready.
For enterprise users, the new Monthly Enterprise Channel is for those that want new features more frequently but still on a predictable monthly schedule. Then there"s the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel and the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview), which are fairly self-explanatory. The Preview channel grants users early access to the semi-annual release for the Microsoft 365 apps.
As of today, the changes should be reflected in all the related documentation for Microsoft 365, and IT admins can roll out the new names using the latest version of the Office Deployment Tool. This isn"t mandatory, however, as the previous names will still be supported in XML configuration files and get updates as usual.