How to enable the new Insider Program Experimental and Beta Channel settings on Windows 11

To enable the new Experimental and Beta Channel settings page on the Windows Insider Program page for Windows 11.
Open Command Prompt as administrator, navigate to the ViveTool folder, and run the vivetool /enable /id:61157505 command.

Microsoft recently announced changes to the Windows Insider Program that introduce a simplified channel structure and new feature flag controls, and you can enable the new settings after installing build 26300.8170 in the Dev or build 26220.8165 in the Beta channel.

As part of the new overhaul for the Windows Insider Program, the company is updating the Settings app with new configuration options. Instead of multiple overlapping channels, you can now choose between the Experimental and Beta channels, with the Release Preview channel continuing to offer near-final builds.

The new Experimental channel replaces both the Canary and Dev channels, and it’ll serve as the earliest entry point for testing features still under active development. In this channel, you’ll be able to enable or disable new features through the new “Feature Flags” page.

In the Beta Channel, the company has decided to always enable new features announced in official announcements, so you won’t need to enable them manually anymore.

You’ll also notice a new “Advanced Options” section that allows you to choose the version of the operating system you want to test through the program. The “Feature Platforms” builds are not tied to any specific version of the operating system.

The company will soon introduce changes to the Settings app, but if you want to enable these changes immediately, you can use a specific ViveTool code (via @PhantomOfEarth).

In this guide, I’ll outline the steps to manually enable the new Windows Insider Program settings page on your Windows 11 setup.

Enable new Windows Insider Program settings on Windows 11

To enable the new Windows Insider Program page on Windows 11, install build 26220.8148 (KB5079491) manually, and then follow these steps:

Open the GitHub website.
Download the ViveTool-vx.x.x.zip file to enable the new Experimental and Beta Channel settings.
Double-click the zip folder to open it with File Explorer.
Click the Extract all button.
Click the Extract button.
Copy the path to the folder.
Open Start.
Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
Type the following command to navigate to the ViveTool folder and press Enter:
```
cd c:\folder\path\ViveTool-v0.x.x
```
In the command, remember to change the path to the folder with your path.
Type the following command to enable the Experimental and Beta Channel options in the Windows Insider Program page and press Enter:
```
vivetool /enable /id:61157505
```
Type the following command to enable the Feature Flags page and press Enter:
```
vivetool /enable /id:60911173
```
Restart the computer.

Once you complete the steps, you’ll be able to choose between the Experimental and Beta Channel from the “Windows Insider Program” section of the Settings app. In addition, you’ll be able to choose the version of Windows 11 that you want to test.

Windows Insider Program new settings / Image: Mauro Huculak

Furthermore, the second ViveTool command will also open the Feature Flags page, where features can be enabled or disabled as they become available.

Thank you for your feedback!

Tell me why, so I can fix it