Microsoft's ship target for Windows 10 'Redstone 2' is March, 2017
For a while now, a number of us Microsoft watchers have been referring to the next feature update to Windows 10 as a "Spring 2017" deliverable.
It seems it'll be on the early side of Spring if Microsoft hits its own internal ship target for Windows 10 "Redstone 2."
Earlier this week, Microsoft officials posted some documentation that made reference to a version of Windows 10 as "1703," which was unearthed by "The Walking Cat" and Tero Alhonen on Twitter.
Using Microsoft's current naming convention for Windows 10 releases, that implies the coming Redstone 2 build will be a March 2017 deliverable.
I asked some of my contacts and they confirmed that March 2017 is, indeed, the current ship target for Windows 10 Redstone 2. (I asked Microsoft officials for comment, and unsurprisingly, they had nothing to say on the matter.)
Remember that ship/RTM (release to mainstream) targets don't necessarily equal general availability. The Windows 10 Anniversary Update, a k a 1607, did hit RTM in July, as that build number indicates, but technically wasn't generally available until August 2.
So far, the Insider test builds of Redstone 2 haven't revealed any of what hopefully will be some of the more major features coming in the next Windows 10 release. The test builds so far have been mostly vehicles for rather minor feature tweaks.
Microsoft is expected to discuss more regarding features and plans for Redstone 2 at its October 26 Windows 10/hardware event in New York City. We've heard there could be talk of the addition of the Windows Holographic shell to Windows 10 Redstone 2 there.
For those wondering whether a 1703 ship target implies anything about dates for Microsoft's Build 2017 event, I don't believe so. Microsoft doesn't need to use its annual developer show to launch a new release, as developers already are working with early versions of new Windows 10 releases on a regular basis.
In other Windows news from this week, Microsoft started rolling out the Anniversary Update/1607 release of Windows 10 to its Surface Hub devices yesterday, October 13. I didn't realize until yesterday's blog post that Microsoft calls the version of Windows 10 inside the Surface Hub "Windows 10 Team Edition."
The Anniversary Update for Surface Hub includes simultaneous pen/touch support; inking support; Flash support for Edge; preloaded PowerBI, OneDrive and Photos apps and more.