Microsoft is now giving the finishing touches to Redstone

May 26, 2016 04:53 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft keeps working on preview builds of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, but if you’re an insider, you’ve probably noticed that the company has slowed down the release cadence in the last few weeks.

And it appears that there’s a good reason for this: the company is now giving the finishing touches to the Redstone update, and no other new features are being developed, so the Windows team is focusing on fixing bugs and improving the performance of the update.

As a result, most of the next builds are very likely to be specifically meant to correct problems and optimize performance, and WinBeta notes that certain minor changes, such as improvements to the Settings app, are also likely to land.

Version 1607

Furthermore, it appears that Microsoft has also decided on the version number of the upcoming Anniversary Update (also referred to by insiders as Redstone Update). This update will be labeled as version 1607, as Microsoft seems to be aiming for an approach similar to the one used in the case of November Update, which landed late last year as version 1511 (version number is YYMM, so it’s November 2015).

This is a sign that Windows 10 Anniversary Update is supposed to land in July 2016, which means that it’ll be available at about the same time the operating system turns one. And this certainly makes sense, given its name.

A second Redstone update is projected to be released in the spring of 2017, and it will include features that weren’t ready for the first wave coming this summer. For the moment, what we know for sure is that the majority of features that Microsoft announced at Build this year and currently part of insider builds will be there in Redstone RS1.

New preview builds of the Anniversary Update are expected to land sometime in the next few days, so if this report is accurate, then expect it to be more about bugs and less about new features. Certainly, we’re getting closer to the release date of the Anniversary Update, and such a thing just makes sense.