Windows 11 Version 22H2, an Upgrade Story (Premium)

Because I review so many laptops, I have an unusually large pool of PCs on which to test whether Windows 11 version 22H2 is being offered. Granted, these are all brand new PCs, so what you’ll see with your own PCs, many of which are probably older, will of course vary. But this is still an interesting survey, I think.

Not surprisingly, I assume, this is how I spent most of Tuesday afternoon, the day that Microsoft released the Windows 11 2022 Update, which upgrades a Windows 11-based PC to Windows 11 version 22H2: I plugged in PC after PC, signed in, ran Windows Update, updating as frequently as needed, rebooting as required, and checking again. And I eventually reached that endgame where the Windows 11 2022 Update is offered, or, as was more often the case, was not.

But let me harp on a familiar issue before continuing. I noted above that one installs the Windows 11 2022 Update to upgrade to Windows 11 version 22H2. This is a fact, but my normal complaint involves how Microsoft always confuses the name of the update and the version of Windows you end up with. And when we spoke to Microsoft last week, on the record, this was borne out: we were told that Microsoft would almost always refer to this thing as the Windows 11 2022 Update. But that if you were to look at About Windows, or at System > About, that the system would report back as Windows 11 version 2022. Just trying to keep things simple here.

But here’s the thing: when you are offered the update via Windows Update, Microsoft notes that “Windows 11, version 22H2 is available.” Not once does the name Windows 11 2022 Update appear anywhere. For the love of God, Microsoft.

Anyway, I’ve tested what one can see when they check Windows Update for the 2022 Update on 10 PCs so far. (I manually updated several other PCs to 2022 because I’ve been working on the Windows 11 Field Guide, so I couldn’t include them in this test.) The update was only offered on three of them. One of them explained that the update was coming but that it was incompatible for some reason. And six of them reported absolutely nothing: not only did they not get the update, but they didn’t even acknowledge the existence of Windows 11 version 2022. That is bizarre to me.

Let’s look at each case.
You’re offered the 2022 Update
As noted, three of the review PCs were offered the 2022 Update: the ThinkPad Z16, the ThinkPad X13xs (which is based on the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, interestingly), and the Acer Aspire Vero.

On each of these PCs, the installation proceeded identically and in a manner that most individuals will experience, though it’s rare for me since I rarely wait for Windows Update: you accept the software license terms, Windows Update downloads the update, and then Windows Update installs most of the update. That last bit is important: you can continue using the PC while this happens, meaning the installation doesn’t mostly happen while the PC is offline. T...