The support clock started ticking Tuesday for Windows 11 22H2, with Enterprise and Education edition customers getting 36 months of support for this release and Home and Pro users getting 24 months.
As Microsoft has been doing for the past couple of years, it is making this update to Windows available via a phased approach.
“Seekers” who want to install it manually using Windows Update will get it first, and machines most likely to encounter no compatibility issues will get the update next.
Also: These are the big new security features in the Windows 11 22H2 update
Here’s what else you might want and need to know about Windows 11 22H2, plus a bit of information about what to expect next on the Windows update front:
Also: Windows 11 Version 22H2: What to expect from the 2022 Update
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Even though officials said Microsoft has done work to reduce the download size and time requirements for its annual and monthly feature updates, the company’s own employees have been told to expect the 22H2 update to take up to 90 minutes to download and install and another 20 minutes to complete the installation.
Update: But wait, there’s a caveat. Microsoft has decided that the feature drop rolling out in November (with Tabbed File Explorer) is going to be considered part of the 22H2 update and not a separate entity, which means this set of features won’t be off by default for Enterprise/Education customers. These features will be on by default. After that, Microsoft will resume with its aforementioned strategy.
My two cents: I believe Microsoft may well be moving to an every-three-year cadence for major updates with the next due in 2024, as Windows Central first reported. But the plan may not be set in stone yet, which gives Woodman a lot of wiggle room in his answer. As to whether something called “Windows 12” will come in 2024, I think it’s just a branding question and dependent on what Apple is doing at the time as much as anything else.
