With Windows 10 20H1 close to being finished, 20H2 is about to go into testing.
A preview of 20H1 has been pushed, the next update due early 2020, with Microsoft announcing that it is very nearly done. As a result of that, they are about to start testing 20H2, with an internal codename of ‘manganese’.
The 20H1 preview build 19033 is now out with both fast ring and slow ring testers, with just a handful of fixes implemented since the last build. The build watermark, indicating a preview test build, has been removed but Microsoft does make it clear that “This doesn’t mean we’re done…”
However, it’s clear that it is almost done as Microsoft has announced they will be releasing new builds from their development branch. That means Insiders in the Fast Ring will get builds from the RS_PRERELEASE development branch and not the VB_RELEASE branch.
Now onto the main inclusion – 20H2 is being developed for dual-screen devices, like their own Surface NEO. It is aimed at any hardware that runs Windows 10X, a kind of spin-off from the main OS designed or portables with dual screens.
We expect to see more bugs and less stability in the first release versions so Microsoft has issued a warning that users should check their Windows Insider Settings and, if they want to stay on 20H1, they should put themselves in the slow ring.
Fast ring testers can expect to be switched over fairly soon.
What’s interesting is that the 20H1 update has been given a version name of 2004 – we expected it to be 2003. Microsoft says that this is so people don’t get confused with Windows Server 2003.
The last-minute fixes applied to the 20H1 preview build are mostly to solve problems surrounding crashing and that includes an issue where the Start menu was crashing on launch if there was a Windows update that requires a system restart.
With the 20H1 update almost ready to be finalized, we might even see it earlier than expected, possibly January or February, rather than the usual Spring update we get from Microsoft. That being said, nothing about Microsoft’s release schedule is certain and, even I the update is ready early, there is every chance they will hang on to it.
