Redmond has confirmed that following the big Anniversary Update which was unleashed earlier this week, Windows 10 won't get any more major updates this year – the next two will both land in 2017.
In a recent blog post on TechNet discussing what the Anniversary Update did for IT professionals, Microsoft stated: "Based on feedback from organizations moving to Windows 10, this will be our last feature update for 2016, with two additional feature updates expected in 2017."
This confirms what we previously (unofficially) heard back in March, namely that the next update (known as Redstone part 2 or RS2 – the Anniversary Update was RS1) would be delayed until the spring of 2017. Previous to that, it had been thought that RS2 would emerge before the end of 2016.
Time spent tinkering
The delay was apparently caused because Redmond spent a lot of time working with the underlying structure and architecture of the OS, which slowed down the progress of introducing new features, as we reported back at the time.
At any rate, it seems that RS2 is likely to pitch up early next year – quite possibly the spring, as mentioned – and according to Windows Central, RS3 will follow in the summer. But again, all this is speculation and could be subject to delays anyhow, just as we've seen this year.
Windows 10 is now a continual work in progress, and we won't see a 'Windows 11' or 'Windows 2020' – it's all W10 with periodic major updates going forward as the desktop OS has effectively become Windows as a Service. The big question is: at what point might it become Windows as a Service with a monthly subscription charge?
