14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is very close to launching the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and with another important milestone about to be reached, many are wondering what is going to happen next with the Windows Insider program.
Although the company has made it very clear that it wants development of Windows updates to continue with help from insiders for many years, Dona Sarkar, the new head of the Windows Insider program, has confirmed in a recent tweet that new preview builds will be released even after the Anniversary Update sees daylight on August 2.
The main reason for continuing the Insider program is that it’s working like a charm, and users who are enrolled in this effort do support Microsoft’s development work, testing preview builds and providing feedback to help the company boost performance and refine each update before rolling it out to everyone.
“We will definitely keep pushing builds post-anniversary update. This system seems to work pretty well,” Dona has said in a tweet earlier today.
Next step: Redstone 2
The next milestone for Windows 10 is the release of the second Redstone wave, which, according to people with knowledge of the matter, is projected to take place in the spring of 2017. Microsoft thus wants to continue development of this update with help from insiders, so preview builds will soon switch to RS2 as the first of them have already been compiled internally.
The second Redstone wave will include updates that weren’t ready for the Anniversary Update, previous reports have revealed, and it will probably come with a bigger focus on mobile. In 2017, Microsoft is also expected to launch its next Windows 10 Mobile flagship device, which has been rumored to be the Surface Phone, with the company itself suggesting that “more cool things” will come for phones next year.
For the moment, however, we look forward to the final build of the Anniversary Update, which should land any day now, given the fact that we’re less than a month away from the moment when retail users will get it too.