Microsoft: Windows 10 functional updates are now annual

On the occasion of the release of the current November Update for Windows 10, Microsoft has promised to continue providing the operating system with annual feature updates. Thus, Microsoft adapts the update cycle to the cycle of Windows 11, which should also receive major updates once a year. So far, Windows 10 has received functional updates twice a year.

Windows 10 21H2 is rolling out, the second feature update of the year. It can be downloaded in the operating system update settings or will appear there soon, depending on the system. The next major update for Windows 10 is scheduled for the second half of 2022, Microsoft announced in its Windows blog.

The November update was announced in July of this year. Windows 10 version 21H2 is just a small, regular “Activation Update” with productivity, management, and security features. Among other things, it provides support for the WPA3-H2E standard to improve WLAN security, as well as GPU arithmetic in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows (EFLOW). Thus machine learning functions and other computing-intensive workflows can rely on graphics card support.

Windows 10 support until 2025

Microsoft is now focusing on further development of Windows 11. However, the software publisher promises to provide support for Windows 10 until mid-October 2025. After all, this operating system continues to play an important role in users with 1.3 billion Windows systems 10 active per month.

At the same time, Microsoft is accelerating the pace of the rollout of Windows 11. It has received positive feedback from users regarding this update. So Microsoft is expanding the release of the next version of the operating system to include more Windows 10 systems that are compatible with Windows 11. For systems that are not really supported, Microsoft has already introduced a trick to bypass Windows requirements. 11, with a warning against this practice.