So, What About Windows 10? (Premium)

Lost in all the excitement and controversy around Windows 11 is the little OS that could, Windows 10, and its 1.3 billion users. What’s going to happen to Windows 10?

Well, Microsoft isn’t talking, of course. All we have are two facts.

First, Windows 10 will be supported through October 14, 2025, which conveniently---and, I assume, purposefully---provided it with the same 10 years of support that it afforded previous major Windows releases. So much for Windows as a Service (WaaS) and support being for “the lifetime of the device,” whatever that meant.

And second, Microsoft will ship Windows 10 version 21H2 concurrently this October with Windows 11, which, by the way, is also currently described as being version 21H2. That may be a clue: Windows 10 and 11 versions 20H2 are almost certainly built on the same core platform, and will be serviced by the same updates, including the same feature experience packs, possibly. (This is how Microsoft services different versions of Windows 10, so it may help to simply think of Windows 11 as another version of Windows 10 on a number of levels.)

But those that wish to stay on Windows 10---and those that will be forced to because of Windows 11’s curiously arbitrary hardware requirements---are naturally curious about what the next four and a half years will look like. I think the past provides a guide.

Most are probably familiar with the fact that WaaS was such a huge failure that Microsoft scaled back its plans for shipping major versions of Windows over time. Initially, it said that it would ship “2 or 3” major new versions of Windows 10 each year, but that quickly changed to twice per year. Those major upgrades, called feature updates, were so unreliable and caused so many problems, however, that Microsoft moved into a staggered model in which the first update each year would be minor, with almost no new features, and the second would be a major update with new features (and a longer support lifecycle for businesses).

That didn’t work either. So the past several Windows 10 “feature updates” have been nothing more than traditional monthly cumulative updates masquerading and major upgrades. They were faster to install, and they came with little in the way of new features, but they were reliable. And then something weird happened: Thanks, I think, to ongoing work to improve the reliability of Windows updates, Windows 10 version 21H1 wasn’t even as big as a cumulative update. It was something else, something even smaller, and I upgraded multiple PCs to this version in as little as three minutes. That’s a huge improvement over previous feature updates and “feature update”/nee cumulative update releases. Huge.

(With Windows 11, Microsoft is taking yet another step back from the WaaS cliff. It will support Windows 11 Home and Pro for two years and Enterprise and Education for three. What happens after that is still a mystery because, well, Microsoft.)

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