When Microsoft made its big announcements on Thursday during the press event in New York City, many of them centered around new features for Windows 11, including the Copilot generative AI assistant, new updates for File Explorer, taskbar, and many more.
At the time, many media outlets, Neowin included, assumed that all of those updates were going to be launched and labeled as the big 23H2 update for Windows 11. However, Microsoft later clarified that wasn"t the case. In fact, all of those new features and improvements will be released as an update to the current Windows 11 version 22H3.
So what happened to Windows 11 23H2? As it turns out, it"s still coming, but it will arrive a bit later than we thought. In a blog post about Microsoft"s Cloud PC updates, the companyput in the following note:
On September 26th, Copilot in Windows will start to roll out in September 2023 optional non-security update for Windows 11, version 22H2--and will be available behind the commercial control for continuous innovation. It will later be included in Windows 11, version 23H2, the annual feature update for Window [sic]11, which will be released in Q4 of this calendar year. (Bold is ours)
This shows that the Windows 11 22H2 update that"s coming September 26 (allegedly the "Moment 4" update) will start rolling out to users the same way Microsoft released the Moment 3 update. Microsoft ships non-security optional updates, or C-updates, on the last week of each month, with general availability in the next Patch Tuesday.
As for Windows 11 version 23H2, it will most likely be available in October 2023, bringing customers the rest of the planned features. Microsoft"s approach to updating Windows 11 in 2023 and the lack of proper communication is somewhat confusing, and we hope this article will make things a little clearer.
You can check out what features the upcoming September 26 update will bring here. Our full Windows 11 version 23H2 review is available here.