Windows 11, the Fall Update, 23H2, and You (Premium)

Thanks to Microsoft's non-transparent and ever-changing updating strategies and inability to communicate, we're unknowingly living in a weird and uncertain new Windows era. And while I continue to struggle with that, weighed down in part by my decades of experience with this process and my strong opinions about what works and what doesn't, we should at least address the most pertinent question. Which is, what's happening?

More specifically, what's happening to Windows 11. In the short term.

Having now spoken to several Microsoft executives and employees, colleagues like Mary Jo, Laurent, and Chris Hoffman, each of whom has their own take on the situation, and Rafael, the greatest living Windows internals expert since Mark Russinovich, I feel like I can provide an answer. It's not necessarily the answer---another piece of this puzzle will fall into place when Microsoft's John Cable publishes a promised post offering his company's official explanation---but it's answer enough.

And it goes like this.

At a high level, there are two things going on here. When it comes to updating Windows, Microsoft has moved to a system in which new features can be introduced into the product at any time, in sharp contrast to the monolithic release milestones of the past. And in late 2022, the software giant internally pivoted its overreaching strategy around AI. And while that latter change will impact all of Microsoft, in the case of Windows, AI will be seen throughout the product, in the system itself and in apps.

When you tie these two realities together, you arrive at the mess we're in now, at least as I perceive it. Microsoft has dramatically changed how it updates Windows, blurring the line between Feature Updates (version upgrades) and the regular stream of updates, many of which are new features. And it wants to keep the AI momentum going so badly that it likewise wants to ship new AI-based features as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for the next Feature Update.

Knowing that the next Windows 11 Feature Update, called 23H2, would normally be shipping in preview form next week, you may of course wonder why Microsoft wouldn't simply align these things and market 23H2 as the AI upgrade for Windows 11. I certainly wonder about this, and that's true even given my growing understanding of what is happening. However it is very clear that Microsoft cannot release all of what will constitute 23H2 together because parts of it are very much not ready for next week. And so we're getting this staged release, in which most of the features we consider to be part of 23H2 will ship soon. And others will ship later.

Which, when you think about it, is no different than what happened with the initial Windows 11 release, 21H2. Or last year's Windows 11 version 22H2. The only real difference is how Microsoft brands or communicates this coming set of releases. And I believe it's been complicated by Microsoft's need to get AI into the hands of its...