14 DAY TRIAL // The recently released Windows 10 Anniversary Update is also known as Redstone 1, or RS1, and is just the first update of a longer series that will bring many more improvements to the core operating system launched in July 2015.
The next logical step is Redstone 2, which, according to sources, is supposed to land in the spring of 2017 and come with features and enhancements that weren’t ready for the first wave.
And in a recent post, Microsoft confirms that 2017 will bring us not one, but two major feature updates for Windows 10, and these are believed to be the aforementioned Redstone 2 as well as Redstone 3.
Last major update of 2016
The company hasn’t provided any specifics but has said that the Anniversary Update is the last major update for Windows 10 released this year, so the focus is now on the second wave. Microsoft has been working on RS2 for a while, and preview builds are expected to be released to users as soon as this month, before a public release in the spring of 2017.
“Today’s release of Windows 10, version 1607 is initially considered the Current Branch (CB) and will become Current Branch for Business (CBB) in about four months from today. Windows 10, version 1607 is our third Windows 10 feature update released. 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,” Microsoft explains in today’s post.
While the second wave of Redstone updates is projected to see daylight in the spring of 2017, the third release is more likely to go live in late summer/early fall, but anything can obviously change since this project is just on the roadmap, and work on it hasn’t actually started.
The second update, however, which is already being worked on behind closed doors, will bring more exciting updates for phone users, as Microsoft wants to concentrate a little bit more on Windows 10 Mobile. Rumor has it that the Surface Phone, often referred to as Microsoft’s only Windows 10 Mobile device to launch in the coming years, will debut with Redstone 2, so it’s critical for the company to get this update right.