Office Insider allows you to get early access to new features in Microsoft Office and is available for users with a Microsoft 365 subscription.

To join the insider program, you go to:

insider.office.com.

While Joining Office Insider you select between two levels: Beta Channel  and Current Channel

Beta Channel

Formerly called Insider channel, is best for those who want to use the latest builds and the new features still in development.

Current Channel

Formerly called Monthly Channel is best for fans who want early access but also want to receive less frequent, more stable updates.

In this article, I will show you how to switch from current Channel to Beta channel or the opposite.

In preparation for switching channels, Sign Out from your Office Account. Make sure you have your credentials to sign back in at a later step.

Method #1

I opened the Microsoft Website:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/office-insider/deploy/office-deployment-tool#change-an-existing-office-installation-to-office-insider

and followed the instructions which can be organized like this:

1. Create a Folder on the Desktop. Name it “Switch Channel”
2. Download the Deployment Tool from the above website
3. Extract to the Folder you created on the Desktop.
   
4. Copy the few lines from the website
   
5. Open Note Pad ► Paste what you copied.
   
6. Save the Notepad file As “Configuration.xml”
   
7. Copy the Folder Path for the folder “Switch Channel”
   
8. Open Command Prompt as Administrator: in the search box next to the Windows Start menu, type “Command Prompt”. Right click it and select Run As Administrator. Accept to continue.
9. In the Command Prompt Window, Type ► cd space and in double quotation paste the file path you copied. ►Hit Enter
   
10. Copy the next set of lines from the previous website
    
11. Paste in Command Prompt ► Hit Enter
12. Open Office (Word or Excel) without Signing in for now.
13. Go to File ►Account ► Update Office. This will Download and Install the updates needed.
14. Sign in to Office with your Credentials.

Note:

To switch from Current channel to Beta, follow the same steps but for the notepad text, replace “CurrentPreview” with “BetaChannel” .

These are the same steps available on the Microsoft website. Honestly, it did not work for me. Maybe because the channel name has changed from CurrentPreview to Current Channel? I’m not quite sure, but I just illustrated them for you since these steps worked for a colleague.

Method #2

This is what I used in the video tutorial. It did not require downloading, creating a folder, creating a Notepad file…etc.

Sign out from Microsoft Office in any application Word, Excel… This will sign you out of Office. Make sure you have your credentials to be able to sign back in.

Just open the Command Prompt As an Administrator.

Copy and paste these lines into the command prompt, then hit enter:

If you are switching from Current Channel To Beta Channel:

reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate /v updatebranch /t REG_SZ /d BetaChannel

If you are switching from Beta Channel To Current Channel:

reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate /v updatebranch /t REG_SZ /d CurrentChannel

Open Office (Word or Excel) without Signing in for now.

Go to File ►Account ► Update Office. This will Download and Install the updates needed.

Sign in to Office with your Credentials

With Office Insider, be the first to use the latest features of Microsoft Office.