Microsoft skips ahead to begin testing its 2020 version of Windows 10

Microsoft hasn’t had the easiest time with its Windows 10 updates in recent months, after the colloquially known October update deleted user files, broke the media player and posed security risks. It seems the company wants to ensure that this doesn’t happen again as Insiders are already being asked to test next year’s major update.

Currently, participants of the Windows 10 Insider Programme are currently shaping 19H1 due out in the coming months. This will introduced Windows Sandbox to users of the operating system, which does away with the need for virtual machines when checking untrusted applications in an isolated desktop environment. It will also usher in a “simplified” Start menu as well as a range of bug fixes and security improvements.

As of yet, the subsequent 19H2 update due in Autumn has yet to appear, but will unsurprisingly launch in the second half of 2019 as its name suggests. This hasn’t stopped Microsoft from skipping forward towards 20H1, otherwise known as Build 18836, which it says might need longer in the oven.

“Today we are releasing a new build to Insiders who have opted into Skip Ahead,” explains head of the Windows Insider Program at Microsoft, Dona Sarkar. “These builds are from the 20H1 development branch. Some things we are working on in 20H1 require a longer lead time.”

A more methodical approach is certainly something to praise when Windows 7 has less than a year to go before it reaches its full end-of-life. Those with a more immediate future in mind will get to access builds for Windows 10 version 19H2 “later this spring,” according to Sarkar.

KitGuru Says: There is absolutely no reason for software to be as broken as the October Update was, so this approach is a welcome one. Is there anything you want to see come to Windows 10 in the next year?

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