Windows 10 Updates – The Rules they are a Changing
Microsoft announced on February 1st that they will be adding another six months to the supprot of Windows 10 version 1607, 1703, and 1709.
| Release | Release Date | End of Support | End of Additional Servicing for Enterprise & Education |
| Windows 10 1511 | November 10, 2015 | October 10, 2017 | April 10, 2018 |
| Windows 10 1607 | August 2, 2016 | April 10, 2018 | October 9, 2018 |
| Windows 10 1703 | April 5, 2017 | October 9, 2018 | April 9, 2019 |
| Windows 10 1709 | October 17, 2017 | April 9, 2019 | October 9, 2019 |
Up to this point Microsoft has offered 18 months of support for each Windows 10 release. This extension seems a direct repsonse from enterprise customers struggling to keep pace with the rapid release cycle and short support windows associated with Windows as a Service.
Windows as a Service isnto only new for customers. It’s new for Microsoft as well. As they figure out how fast customers can ingest all of the innovatiosn comign out of Redmond, we’ll see the release cycles stabailze and balance update frequency with upgrade readiness.
For organizations that are having trouble transitioning engineerg efforts traditional associated with operating system updates to a more operational model, tools like Intune and SCCM can help accelerate the transion. I’ll be writng a few pieces in the future on how to take advantage of these types of tools to simplify Windows 10 update management.
