Microsoft will completely change Windows again

Windows as a Service has been Microsoft’s mantra for a while, before and after the launch of Windows 11 in October last year.

Now Microsoft has changed everything…again

The strategy was to update the operating system regularly and with at least one major update every year, but now Windows Central announces that Microsoft will instead release new versions every three years, and new versions mean more than a basic update to Windows 11.

At the same time, the Windows blog announces that the company will increase the number of new functions for Windows 11. This is, according to sources that the same newspaper spoke to.

Windows 12 is coming in 2 years

In other words, “Windows 12” will come in 2024, which in turn means that beta testers will likely be testing the next generation early next year. Because even though Windows 11 wasn’t officially released until last year, many beta and RTM versions were running long before the PC manufacturers version was released in late 2021.

The change in plans means that the launch of Windows 11 for 2023, called Sun Valley 3, has been cancelled. Starting at 22H2 (Sun Valley 2), Microsoft’s plan is to increase the number of features during the year and up to four times per year starting next year.

“Next Valley”

Instead of Sun Valley 3, features (which Microsoft calls “Moments” internally, but may not be marketed as external) that were built for this version will instead be integrated into the 22H2.

We know nothing about the emergence of “Windows 12” in 2024 other than the codename “Next Valley”, other than that Microsoft is in an early stage of development.

The fact that Microsoft is once again changing the path from minor updates to Windows 11 to back again to major launches every three years is a huge change, and we’re excited to see the results. It is not known exactly why they changed the strategy so often, but it is possible that one factor was the beta testing system on which they spent so many resources.