Last month, Microsoft announced that its Windows 10 Anniversary Update will be released on August 2, bringing a wide range of impressive new features and improvements to the OS.
But this week, it confirmed that the update won't be available for everyone on that date, although that shouldn't really come as a great surprise.
Indeed, when Microsoft released Windows 10 just under a year ago, it didn't simply open the floodgates to hundreds of millions of users, allowing them all to upgrade at once. Instead, those wishing to be among the first to upgrade were required to 'reserve' their copy of Windows 10, enabling the company to manage the pace at which users could migrate to its new OS.
Now, with over 350 million devices on Windows 10, Microsoft faces a similarly mammoth task in upgrading all of them to the Anniversary Update - and as with its original launch of the OS, they won't all be able to upgrade at the same time.
Speaking on the latest Windows Weekly podcast, Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider Program, said that the rollout will begin on August 2, but will progress in 'waves'.
"It's going to take some time," she said. "We'll start with PC and phone, and it's going to be a global rollout. It's going to take time. Everyone's going to freak out wondering 'where's my update?', 'is it time yet?' and 'it didn't come'. So it's going to take a little while to roll out to everybody."
It's not yet clear exactly how much time it will take to complete the rollout. But one thing that is now clear is that the Anniversary Update for the Xbox One won't be arriving on August 2 as many had expected. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that Microsoft never actually committed to availability for the Xbox One on that specific date, saying only that the first of two planned updates for the console would arrive "this summer".
The reason for that now seems clear. In addition to pointing out that the Anniversary Update will be available for PCs and phones first, Dona further clarified that other devices won't be part of that initial release.
"Xbox and HoloLens," she said, "those come at different times since the end device is just separate."
Source: Windows Weekly via Digital Trends
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