Microsoft moves to new Windows development cycle with major release every three years, feature drops in between

Microsoft is shifting to a new engineering schedule for Windows which will see the company return to a more traditional three-year release cycle for major versions of the Windows client, while simultaneously increasing the output of new features shipping to the current version of Windows on the market.

The news comes just a year after the company announced it was moving to a yearly release cadence for new versions of Windows. According to my sources, Microsoft now intends to ship major" versions of the Windows client every three years, with the next release currently scheduled for 2024, three years after Windows 11 shipped in 2021.

Windows' release schedule and system have become so incredibly obtuse I honestly have long ago lost track of what, exactly, has been released, which features are widely available and which are only in one or more of the testing releases, and so on. The continuously shifting plans from Microsoft do nothing but muddy the waters.