Microsoft released the new November 2021 update for Windows 10, marking the end of semi-annual updates. From now on, such updates will be annual, keeping the same frequency as the updates for the new Windows 11. Thus, the next Windows 10 feature update is scheduled for the second half of 2022.
Since after the release of Windows 11 Microsoft remained silent about its plans for future feature updates for Windows 10, it’s still unclear what these updates will bring in the future. In the case of this new November update, the only notable feature is the addition of GPU compute support for Linux Subsystems in Windows, as the rest are minor changes. Also, the company started delivering Microsoft Store updates at the beginning of the month.
Windows 10 will be supported until October 14, 2025, although most of the updates are likely to be for bugs and security patches rather than new features. Microsoft’s idea is that more and more users will move to Windows 11 since most of the new features will be implemented in this new version. In fact, today they announced that the update is now available for more devices, looking to increase the percentage of users.
Based on the positive deployment upgrade experience and user feedback we’ve seen to date, we’re advancing the pace of deployment faster than we anticipated, and now making the Windows 11 upgrade available to more eligible Windows 10 devices.
It looks like Microsoft is ready to leave Windows 10 behind and focus entirely on the new version of the operating system. It will be interesting to see what the future of this operating system will be as many users are still unwilling or unable to upgrade to Windows 11, and therefore will continue to demand new updates as happened with the DirectStorage case.