Microsoft Confirms Windows 11 Will Continue Free Service-Model Upgrades For Years To Come
As it stands, Windows 10 gets monthly security, quality, and the occasional out-of-band update which all help to keep users “productive and protected.” It appears Microsoft has now officially confirmed that Windows 11 will be following the same update system which has worked well for the past six years. The continual updates to Windows 10 over the years have ensured that customers have access to all the latest features and security fixes at no additional cost.
In a recent documentation post about monthly quality updates, technical writer Greg Lindsay outlines the plan for updates concerning Windows 10 and 11. First and foremost, quality updates which consist of either non-security releases or security and non-security releases combined will still be provided on a monthly schedule. Following that, the traditional Patch Tuesday, the seldom-known C release, and out-of-band updates will all be available for download monthly as well.
Microsoft has also noted in earlier documents that feature updates for Windows 11 will be provided annually, with a release target of the second half of each calendar year. This is a change from Windows 10, which generally receives two significant updates per year (one in the spring, and one in the fall). This will amount to four total Windows 11 feature updates as the “Home, Pro, Pro for Workstations, and Pro for Education editions of Windows 11 will receive 24 months of support from the general availability date.” On the other hand, Microsoft will support enterprise and education versions of Windows 11 for up to 36 months following general availability.
Hopefully, this gives the IT people among us some relief as Microsoft works to smoothly integrate Windows 11. By not changing update patterns, the methodologies that companies must handle updates can remain in place. This also means we still get to talk about Patch Tuesday, which has been having quite some trouble as of late.
