The companies have said that Windows 11 users will not receive updates on products like Office or Edge for the next two and a half years. During this break they will not release any new features to the website; any updates to be made during this time are limited to security updates only.
Windows 11 Halts Updates Until 2025: Security Patches Only
The decision was taken especially for the fact that the activities are likely to slow down during festive seasons. The company informed for the public that there would be no non-security preview updates in December of the year 2024.
The last update released on November 12, 2024, is mainly targeting major security vulnerabilities. Quite often, safety updates are issued on monthly basis to ensure users their data will remain secure, however, further development of the app and new features are unlikely.
Microsoft stated that much of the activity by both the development and test teams are curtailed during the holiday season and that at the start of the new year. Consequently, they will pause preview updates for now.
In the meantime, next year’s updates, including security and general releases, are scheduled to appear no sooner than January 2025. Meanwhile, users can still receive monthly security updates so as to protect their systems.
Microsoft Pauses Windows 11 Insider Builds for the Holidays
Microsoft Windows 11 updates are released in preview builds via its insider track systems which include the Developer and Beta tracks. With these builds users are able to preview the future features before they are rolled out in the market.
These preview builds tend to be full of new features that may just end up in the final builds although not all the features that are in these build sets are assured to be in the final OS of the public.
But, this software updates are a bit put on hold during the festive period by Microsoft. The company has mentioned that this period experiences many employee absences, thus there is restricted possibility of development and testing.
Therefore, Insider channels will not receive any fresh preview builds of the product before the advent of the holidays. For this reason, it is possible to assert that this break can mean that the builds released at the beginning of a given year are as stable as possible and as well-supported as possible.
Of course, Microsoft has promised to get back to the process of providing the preview builds on a weekly basis after the holidays. Until then, users can continue getting monthly security patches and any other non-preview changes in their current builds.
Windows 11 Teases New Global Sharing Button Feature
Recently, one of the Windows Insider users discovered the code of a “global sharing button” feature in the preview build. Though this feature is now turned off, it has great potential for becoming a new addition to the primary functionality of Windows 11.
The global sharing button, which is to be enabled once the operating system is launched, would make it possible for users to share materials and files across independent platforms within Windows. This feature is meant to make sharing easier through this platform.
For the present, this feature is still in the experimental phase and has not been included in the general use package. Microsoft has yet to release an official statement regarding whether the feature will, or even when it will be added to a future update.
Since, there can be this new feature added into vista; Microsoft still stresses on sécurité updates. Its last security release fixed 91 flaws affecting Windows 11, including four that hackers are already exploiting.
That is why Windows 11 users should look forward to several security patches that will allow their machines to be safe from such openings as Microsoft works on features of the OS, incorporating the global share button, for instance. This conflict between the two concepts remains an important consideration for Microsoft to this date.