You no longer see the featured and advertising tiles after the latest ALPHA ring update

We Beta ring insiders don't wait that long to get updates after Alpha ring. Just keep giving good feedback about bugs and features, and I'm sure you'll be invited soon.

This has supposedly been fixed, along with a bunch of other stuff, in an update that's available for people in the preview program (alpha ring) now.

So, if you're in the alpha ring, check for updates and you should see it there ready to install.

If you're not in the alpha ring, or you're not in the preview program at all, I expect they'll roll out an update with a bunch of fixes in it to the public fairly soon.

Hi,

I understand your frustration, everyone on Alpha Skip Ahead now has the new home screen experiment and 50% of the users in alpha ring have it these were chosen at
random and nothing to do with level and XP.

Within the next two weeks, everyone on alpha ring will have the new home screen, the reason that only 50% of users got it was for A/B testing to compare how like-minded insiders use the old home screen compared
to the new one to see what features can be removed or moved to another position on the home screen.

Even though it might seem that you are not getting the latest features and that you are not helping but that's not the truth you are making Xbox the best experience to play.

I think the Beta ring is pretty good. Updates aren't as frequent as with Alpha and ASA, less bugs, but still get to try features early.

If your friend is in the Xbox Insider Program, it might be that the Guide re-arrangement feature is currently in testing for the Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead rings. He could start the Xbox Insider App and check which ring he is enrolled in.

If he's eligible, he might have the chance to move up to an Alpha ring, but also at the risk of new stuff not working. So he should really consider if it's worth moving up to a less stable ring.

When that new feature is being released to lower rings or the general public depends on how many issues the Alpha Testers find with the feature.

Only if it's considered to run stable, it'll be released to lower rings or for general availability.