Windows 10
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| Initial release | Windows 10 (29 July 2015) |
|---|---|
| Latest release | Windows 10 November 2021 Update (16 November 2021) |
| Supported platforms | x86, AMD64, ARM64[note 1] |
- This article is about the operating system series developed since 2014. See Windows 10 (original release) for the original operating system release called "Windows 10".
Windows 10 is a series of Microsoft Windows operating systems, initially released in July 2015 after being announced in September 2014. It succeeded Windows 8.1 and was ultimately superseded by Windows 11 on 5 October 2021.
This is the first version of Microsoft Windows to not include MS-DOS in any form as the ability to create MS-DOS 8.00 startup disks has been removed. It is also the first version of Microsoft Windows to not have support for Windows Media Center as Microsoft decided to discontinue the app due to decreased usage.
This is the last version of Microsoft Windows to support the IA-32 architecture (32-bit x86 systems) as Windows 11 requires an x86-64 processor with CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW and LAHF/SAHF instructions. This is the last version of Microsoft Windows to have NTVDM to run 16-bit apps.
Windows as a service[edit | edit source]
With Windows 10, Microsoft introduced a new release model called Windows as a service. Instead of releasing a major version of Windows every few years, the company instead vowed to release smaller updates to Windows 10 multiple times a year. These updates, labeled feature updates to differentiate them from regular bugfixes, are major updates to the operating system that add new features to the operating system. Usually, they are a new build of the operating system released after one or more development cycles. However, on multiple occasions, a limited set of new features has been released as a cumulative update and labeled as a new Windows 10 feature update.
Originally, feature updates were released twice in a year, with the first feature update being released in spring and the other in autumn. The schedule was realigned in 2021 in that feature updates for Windows 10 would be released annually in order to be consistent with Windows 11's new release cadence.[1]
List of feature updates[edit | edit source]
| Name | Version | Based on | Release date | Support end date | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer | Enterprise | Long-term | IoT | |||||
| Windows 10 | 1507 | Threshold | 2015-07-29 | 2017-05-09 | 2025-10-14 | Initial release; only numbered as version 1507 retroactively in documentation. | ||
| Windows 10 November Update | 1511 | Threshold 2 | 2015-11-10 | 2017-10-10 | N/A | N/A | ||
| Windows 10 Anniversary Update | 1607 | Redstone 1 | 2016-08-02 | 2018-04-10 | 2019-04-09 | 2026-10-13 | ||
| Windows 10 Creators Update | 1703 | Redstone 2 | 2017-04-11 | 2018-10-09 | 2019-10-08 | N/A | N/A | |
| Windows 10 Fall Creators Update | 1709 | Redstone 3 | 2017-10-17 | 2019-04-09 | 2020-10-13 | N/A | N/A | Introduces ARM64 support |
| Windows 10 April 2018 Update | 1803 | Redstone 4 | 2018-04-30 | 2019-11-12 | 2021-05-11 | N/A | N/A | |
| Windows 10 October 2018 Update | 1809 | Redstone 5 | 2018-11-13 | 2020-11-10 | 2029-01-09 | |||
| Windows 10 May 2019 Update | 1903 | Titanium | 2019-05-21 | 2020-12-08 | N/A | N/A | Also known as 19H1 | |
| Windows 10 November 2019 Update | 1909 | Vanadium[2] | 2019-11-12 | 2021-05-11 | 2022-05-10 | N/A | N/A | Cumulative update based on May 2019 Update codebase; also known as 19H2 |
| Windows 10 May 2020 Update | 2004 | Vibranium[2][3] | 2020-05-27 | 2021-12-14 | N/A | N/A | Also known as 20H1 | |
| Windows 10 October 2020 Update | 20H2 | 2020-10-20 | 2022-05-10 | 2023-05-09 | N/A | N/A | Cumulative update based on May 2020 Update codebase | |
| Windows 10 May 2021 Update | 21H1 | 2021-05-18 | 2022-12-13 | N/A | N/A | Cumulative update based on May 2020 Update codebase | ||
| Windows 10 November 2021 Update | 21H2 | 2021-11-16 | 2023-06-13 | 2024-06-11 | 2027-01-12 | 2032-01-13 | Cumulative update based on May 2020 Update codebase | |
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Legend:
Never released
Old version
Older version, still supported
Current stable version
Latest preview version
Future release
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Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Support for ARM64 was added in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. An ARM32 port is also maintained internally.