Ask Paul: October 20 (Premium)

Hola from Mexico City, and Happy Friday! Here's another great set of reader questions to kick off the weekend a bit early.
Windows 12?
will asks:

I was curious if the next version of Windows, Windows 12 or whatever it is called, will be more of something like we see with the Windows 11 23H2 release in that it is an update that brings some new features and some slight UI changes, but overall is still similar to the current Windows 11 OS.  This would change over time as the yearly updates continue, but the changes are more incremental vs a big update with sweeping changes.  IMO this would make it easier to for businesses and enterprises to continue to move forward with upgrades and updates without needing to wait long periods of time for testing.

Obviously, we can only speculate. But if there is a Windows 12 and it arrives one year from now, then, yes, this makes sense. And generally speaking, it's a good plan: Keep the codebase relatively consistent and provide a clean year-over-year upgrade plan that mimics the Windows 10 lifecycle but with a brand change every three years. This is somewhat similar to what Apple did with macOS: After many OS X (version 10) releases, it has incremented the version number each year while just calling it macOS.

But there has to be something to justify the Windows 12 name. With Windows 11, Microsoft can at least point to the simpler new user interface, which I think most would at least agree is pleasant and modern. (I think it makes Windows 10 look horribly dated.) So what's the hook for Windows 12?

This past February, I first made the case that Windows 12 would be the AI release. But Microsoft has instead accelerated the adoption of AI features in Windows, most recently by shipping all of the big new features from Windows 11 23H2 ahead of that release to ensure that customers were forced to adopt them. This doesn't mean that Windows 12 won't be about AI, but it does diminish it as a new product version. It can't just be about requiring an NPU either broadly or for certain features. It has to sell new PCs, and entice the enterprise to skip Windows 11 and adopt 12 instead. Etc.

Or … maybe it doesn't. Maybe I'm still struggling with Microsoft's new strategy for evolving Windows with new features every single month ("continuous innovation"). And maybe it's important to remember that a Windows license is a Windows license, and that Microsoft gets paid regardless of which version corporate customers use. The security baseline for Windows 11 and 12 can be the same anyway. So what does it matter?

Ultimately, we're just waiting on Microsoft, as usual. But if this past year has taught me anything, it's that the company's historic inability to communicate effectively combined with the seemingly random way in which it installs new features on PCs is a recipe for even more uncertainty. Meaning, they'll come clean on Windows 12, or whatever next year's 24H2 release is eventually. But even that won't...