Credit: ZDNet
Microsoft officials have not provided a public update on the company’s Windows 10X plans since they acknowledged in early May that they were shifting gears by first making it available on single-screen devices. Internally, though, things are taking shape and the team is targeting spring 2021 for a first 10X commercial launch, according to my sources.
Windows 10X, codenamed “Lite” / “Santorini”, is not a new operating system. It is a variant of Windows 10 in a more modular form and with a new and simpler interface. Microsoft originally planned to ship 10X first on new dual-screen devices like the postponed Surface Neo.
I heard that Microsoft’s latest plan calls for 10X to debut on single-screen devices designed primarily for business (especially frontline workers) and education in the spring of 2021. And in the spring of 2022, Microsoft aims to roll out 10X for more Single-screen and dual-screen devices, my contacts say.
The first version of 10X will not include support for running Win32 applications in containers, as originally planned, as reported by Windows Central, and I’m also listening. Instead, you will only be able to run the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and web applications. Zac Bowden of Windows Central believes that Microsoft may be counting on Microsoft’s new cloud PC virtualization service, which I reported this week to provide access to those who need Win32 applications. My bet is that the Win32 container support will not be there not only because of power / resource overload, but because Microsoft has had issues with the performance of the Win32 application on 10X.
I heard that Microsoft hasn’t given up running containerized Win32 applications on 10X, but probably not until 2022 at the earliest.
I asked Microsoft for a comment and a spokesperson declined.
What will happen to Windows 10 “normal” during all this? The spokesperson also declined to answer that question.
Microsoft may end up releasing just one feature update per year for Windows 10 starting in 2021 in order to free more engineers so they can focus on Windows 10X and Windows 10, as I heard from my sources. If that’s accurate, this would mean that Microsoft will deliver Windows 10X releases in the H1 / spring seasons and new Windows 10 feature updates in H2 / fall, moving forward. As I have previously reported, Microsoft is expected to bring some features it is building for Windows 10X, such as UX elements and possibly containerization and security technologies, to normal Windows 10.
If this new feature update schedule occurs once a year, here is what we would probably see:
In the fall of 2020, Microsoft will release Windows 10 20H2, its much smaller feature update, as expected. Microsoft has acknowledged that 20H2 will be a minor update to Windows 10 2004 and will be a very small and fast update for those running 2004. (Until now, it seemed that Microsoft was establishing itself at a “major” / minor cadence twice a year. for Windows 10 feature updates.) But then, in the spring of 2021, instead of releasing a Windows 10 21H1 feature update, Microsoft will deliver its first version of the 10X operating system.
In the fall of 2021, my sources say, Microsoft will release a feature update for regular Windows 10 SKUs. This will be the 21H2 update if Microsoft sticks with its current nomenclature. And in the spring of 2022, Microsoft will release an updated version of Windows 10X that will work on both single-screen and dual-screen devices, according to what I hear about the company’s current plans.
Remember: all of these internal goals and possible schedule changes are always subject to change. But this is the internal plan at the moment, my contacts say.
