Ask Paul: September 23 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Let’s kick off the weekend a bit earlier after this tiring week with some great reader questions.
EOL
andybarzyk asks:

So 22H2 is out for Windows 11 but I don't see anything about Windows 10. We need to rebuild our image at work as the image has the oldest supported version of 10 and once this new one is released, does the end of life clock start ticking on that (i.e. dose the oldest supported version move to a newer build) or is that already a set 2-year thing?

Windows 10 will be supported until October 14, 2025. Windows 10 Home and Pro versions are supported for 18 months, and Windows 10 Enterprise and Education are supported for 30 months. Until last year, there were two versions released every year, so there’s a wrinkle. So EOL for 22H2 depends on which versions you’re using for starters.

But if you go back to Microsoft’s original announcement about moving to an annual feature update schedule, you’ll find this bit from John Cable: “We will continue to support at least one version of Windows 10 through Oct. 14, 2025.” At least one version. This suggests that Microsoft might stop releasing new Windows 10 versions when it gets close enough to the EOL date because why bother? It can meet the letter of its agreement at that point. (It could do so even earlier with Enterprise and Education, I suppose.)

Anyway, Windows 10 version 22H2 will not be the final version of Windows 10, because it will be supported until mid-May 2023 (Home and Pro) or mid-October 2024 (Enterprise and Education). So there will at least be a 23H2 release. Or will there? Microsoft could also meet the letter of its agreement by simply extending the support lifecycle for any version of Windows 10 to October 2025. It could do so for 22H2. Or 23H2. I guess we’ll see.

The issue here, of course, is that Microsoft isn’t communicating what it is doing clearly. And it may not even be sure what it will do, schedule-wise. But it has been very cagey about Windows 10 version 22H2 features. And I don’t understand this.

This isn’t 100 percent related to your question, but I’m bothered by how this has played out. I don’t understand why Microsoft can’t tell its customers what it’s doing with Windows 10 version 22H2 and what its plans are beyond that. It’s just common sense.

Instead, this is what happened.

On July 28, 2022, Microsoft PR emailed me to tell me that it was releasing the first build of Windows 10 version 2H22 to the Release Preview channel of the Windows Insider Program. (Here’s the Microsoft blog post that resulted.) And that was the extent of the information. And so I asked them, as did others, “Thanks, are there any new features in this release?” And I was told that Microsoft would update the blog post, which was also devoid of information, with this addition: "This build is focused on validating the servicing technology. Windows 10, version 22H2 has a scoped set of features and Microsoft will s...

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