Microsoft has officially confirmed that Windows 12 will not be released until 2024 and the next major version of Windows will be “Windows 11 version 24H2”, codenamed Hudson Valley.
In an earlier publication we had mentioned that the “Windows 11 24H2” version existed in support documents. So Microsoft has officially confirmed the name in a new post on her blog which announces sudo for Windows.
The company says that insiders in the Dev/Canary channels will notice the name “Windows 11 version 24H2” in Settings, Winver, and other places.
Starting with Build 26-xx today, Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels will see the versioning updated under Settings > System > About (and winver) to version 24H2. This denotes that Windows 11, version 24H2 will be this year’s annual feature Update. As mentioned here, Windows 11 will have an annual feature update cadence that releases in the second half of the calendar year.
“This suggests that Windows 11 24H2 will be this year's annual update capabilities", Says Microsoft.
"Windows 11 will have an annual feature update rate that will be released in the second half of the calendar year," the company clarified, adding that it will continue to focus on the annual feature update approach.
So guesswork is over, Microsoft has decided to stick with Windows 11 for now at least.
Does this mean that no big changes are expected?
Not exactly.
It is important to understand that the brand name of Windows editions is not that important.
Although the next version of Windows will not be called Windows 12, but rather “Windows 11 2024 Update”, this does not mean that there will not be significant updates or changes. The names and branding of the operating system are chosen by the marketing team, which means they can decide on any name that suits their strategy.
