Microsoft is planning another big change in the way it updates Windows, according to a report from Windows Central. Rather than updating a single version of Windows for many years as it did with Windows 10, Microsoft plans to return to a schedule where it releases a major new version of Windows roughly once every three years, putting the default “Windows 12” on track for being released sometime in the future. Fall 2024.
At first glance, this looks pretty much like a rollback of Windows 10. Windows Vista from 2006 was replaced by Windows 7 from 2009, Windows 8 from 2012, and Windows 10 from 2015. But the report says that Microsoft will continue to improve the current version of Windows on a regular basis, with new features (internally referred to as “Moments”) scheduled approximately once every quarter. We’ve already tasted this with Windows 11, which has steadily evolved throughout the year rather than keeping all the big changes to the pending Windows 11 22H2 update.
When Windows 11 was released in October 2021, Microsoft said that Windows 11 and Windows 10 would receive major “feature updates” once a year in the second half. This was actually a change from Windows 10, which received two such updates every year. But Windows Central reports that the Windows 11 2023 feature update has already been “discontinued,” suggesting that the big annual update model may be gone for good.
Whatever the company is planning, it is not ready to announce to the public at the moment. A Microsoft spokesperson, when reached for comment, told us that the company “does not comment on rumors or speculation.”
This leaves a host of big questions unanswered. If this change is to come, will there still be a “23H2” version of Windows to determine the Windows 11 update lifecycle? Will Windows 12 be a paid upgrade like older versions of Windows, or will it be free for existing Windows users like Windows 10 and Windows 11? What features, if any, will be retained across major versions of Windows? What kind of features are included in Moments and which are for the major releases?
There may be benefits to going back to specific versions of Windows more clearly; This is an opportunity to make bigger UI changes or subtle improvements while taking advantage of the additional user awareness and media attention that comes with major updates. It’s also an opportunity to tweak system requirements, ensuring that any Windows 12 system has more capable hardware than one running Windows 11 (although the downside for users will further tighten Windows 11’s already binding requirements).
To third-party developers and IT administrators, on the other hand, the current plan looks like the worst of both worlds: a current, ever-changing version of Windows, which is always tweaking, as well as a more fragmented installation base with large groups of users running one of three or four Different versions of Windows with different user interfaces and feature sets. IT administrators can roll back bad habits, skip less desirable versions of Windows (such as 8 or Vista) while staying on the quantitatively known “good” versions (such as XP or 7), and miss out on important new features and security upgrades in the process.
If Microsoft has more to share about its update plans for Windows 10 or Windows 11 in the future, it can do so when annual feature updates for both operating systems are released later this year. Windows 11 22H2 has been generally developed in the Windows Insider test channels and has already been fairly well documented. The company said almost nothing about Windows 10 22H2, which may or may not add user-perceptible functionality to the latest generation of operating systems now.
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