Here's how to get Windows 10 build 10061 if you're stuck on 10056

Late last night, depending on where you are in the world, build 10061 of the Windows 10 Technical Preview was released to the Fast Ring for Windows Insiders, but those who opted to install the leaked 10056 build could only see an option to upgrade to build 10066, an internal build for Microsoft employees which fails every time.

There is a workaround to get build 10061 through Windows Update, but it requires a bit of tinkering with the Registry Editor and elevated Command Prompt which we will detail below. The following steps also place you in the Fast Ring.

From build 10056 only seeing 10066 as an option, open the Registry Editor by pressing Start > type Regedit > then hit the Enter key, and select UAC prompt Yes.

• Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsSelfHost\Applicability
• Change: BranchName to fbl_impressive
• Change: ThresholdRiskLevel to low
• Change: Ring to WIF
• Change: (DWORD) ThresholdOptedin to 00000001
• Change: ThersholdInternal to 0

The above keys may be set this way already.

Then open Command Prompt as Administrator (Start menu > type cmd > right click > Run as Administrator) and type the following, wait until each process completes before moving to the next step:

• net stop wuauserv
• net stop bits
• net start bits
• net start wuauserv

Then go to Windows Update and check for updates, you may have to 'Retry' as it could fail the first time. If this does not work and you needed to make registry edits, restart your PC and try the above net stop/start command process again.

If this still fails you may have to rollback to build 10041 - you can grab the official x86 and x64 ISOs here, which will then require a clean install of build 10041, and upgrade to 10061 via the Fast Ring.

Thanks to juli@n for the tip!