We Have a Release Candidate
- Paul Thurrott
- Mar 22, 2019
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Microsoft may not like this term anymore, but with Windows 10 19H1 build 18362 heading to the Slow ring, we now have a Release Candidate (RC).
“Hello, Windows Insiders,” Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar writes in an update to Wednesday’s post about build 18362. “We have released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18362 (19H1) to Windows Insiders in the Slow ring.”
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That, combined with the fact that Microsoft had just released build 18361 only a day prior, is all the evidence we need: Microsoft has completed development of Windows 10 version 1903—aka 19H1—and is just trying to reach a level of quality where they can sign off on it. In other words, it has reached what we used to call the Release Candidate phase, where the current build is literally a candidate for release, or what used to be called RTM (Release to Manufacturing).
These days, of course, the manufacturing, such as it is, is all electronic. And Microsoft will, as it always does, update the code post-RTM in the weeks leading up to General Availability (GA). A term that Microsoft, curiously, is still using.
To be prudent, I’m holding off on a Magic Window post. But I think we’re almost there.