14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has nearly completed work on new features supposed to become available for the production ring in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (internally called Windows 10 Redstone 3), so the company is getting ready to start shipping builds as part of the rs3_release branch and focus entirely on bug fixes.
The software giant is expected to sign off Windows 10 Redstone 3 in September and release the final RTM build, but the next few weeks will bring us builds that are entirely focused on fixing bugs and refining the performance of the operating system, a report from WindowsCentral notes.
News that Windows 10 Redstone 3 is almost ready isn’t surprising, as the company has recently started the final Bug Bash ahead of the public launch of the operating system. The Bug Bash is an effort that Microsoft runs together with the Windows Insider community to track down bugs in the operating system.
Microsoft typically starts several such Bug Bash programs during the development of a new Windows 10 update, but with one major version launched towards the end of the process when the company is ready to switch focus to refining performance rather than to shipping new features.
Major features left behind
While it’s certainly good news that Microsoft is now finalizing another major Windows 10 update, the bad news is that the company is actually leaving behind some of the biggest features that it announced earlier this year at Build.
Timeline and the Cloud Clipboard are two of them, and neither made it to preview builds of Windows 10 Redstone 3, so there’s a good chance they’ll be held back for the next OS update presumably called Windows 10 Redstone 4.
As per Microsoft’s Windows 10 update schedule, Redstone 4 is projected to arrive in the spring of 2018, and insiders should start getting preview builds shortly after the Fall Creators Update goes live in September. Major new features, however, will only start showing up later in the year.