The company finally confirms what we already knew

Apr 21, 2017 04:43 GMT  ·  By

We’ve known for a while that Microsoft’s “Windows as a Service” strategy involved rolling out two major OS updates going live every year, and now the company has made it official, also revealing that the Windows 10 Redstone 3 update is projected to launch in September.

Basically, what Microsoft is trying to do is release new and major OS updates to Windows 10 every six months, then offering support for a maximum of 18 months. This means that users have one year and a half to upgrade to the latest version of the operating system to continue receiving support.

With Windows 10 Creators Update finalized in March and shipped in April, the next target is now September for the Windows 10 Redstone 3 update - note that Redstone 3 is just a codename, and the official name will be announced at a later time, possibly at the Build developer conference next month.

New OS updates coming March and September

September is most likely the month when Microsoft wants to finalize work on Redstone 3, and this means that Windows insiders in the Fast ring are very likely to get it the first month, while the retail launch should take place in October.

In other words, Redstone 3 is very likely to be version 1709, according to Microsoft’s version naming strategy that includes the year and the month of RTM compiling date for each final build.

Once work on Windows 10 Redstone 3 is finalized, Microsoft will start development of the next OS update which, according to the new schedule, is projected to launch in March 2018. From now on, March and September are the months to witness the introduction of new Windows 10 builds, Microsoft says.

Microsoft has also reiterated that Windows 10 is “the fastest-adopted version of Windows version,” claiming that it already has more than 400 million monthly active devices. The same figures were provided in September 2016, so at this point there are certainly many more than that.