Microsoft has been releasing tiny bits of updates here and there to its Windows 10 technical preview users since it was launched and has confirmed that it won’t be releasing anything substantial in terms of features till next year.
Redmond is expected to release a new version of the Windows 10 preview for desktops, mobile devices and servers sometime in January when it will reportedly reveal Windows 10 Consumer Preview.
A major development as far as Kernel of Windows 10 goes is the change in numbering of the version. There has been a discrepancy in Kernel version numbers and Windows OS and to streamline this, Microsoft recently changed the kernel version number from 6.4 to 10.
Just this Tuesday, Microsoft rolled out updates and a few fixes to Windows 10 Technical Preview build (9879) – one of which was meant to fix an Explorer-specific crash. There have been a few unofficial builds that have been making rounds on the internet and Microsoft has warned users against using these builds as many of them have been dubbed unstable even for testers including build 9888.
Cortana for Windows 10 has been rumoured since its release on Windows Phone and just recently we reported a leak that showed off Cortana icon in Windows 10 task bar. Prior to that Microsoft had already dropped hints of existence of Cortana in Windows 10 thereby more or less officially confirming that Windows 10 will feature Cortana.
One thing isn’t known for sure is when will it release a working version of Cortana for Windows 10 and according to some reports, it could very well land in January when Microsoft releases Windows 10 Consumer Preview in January next year.
As far as the naming of these previews is concerned, there are those in the media world, with contacts within Microsoft, who claim that instead of calling it consumer preview, it will be called January Technical Preview. Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet says that this preview will be followed by February Technical Preview, March Technical Preview and so on.
Moving onto Windows 10 for mobile devices. It has long been said that Windows 10 will be available in different SKUs – one for mobile devices, another for tablets and yet another for PCs; however, nothing concrete has emerged till date.
According to those aware of the Windows 10 development, Windows 10 mobile SKU will power not only ARM-based smartphones and tablets, it will also work on smaller and less powerful Intel-based devices too.
January 2015 will also be the month when Microsoft will reveal a lot more about its Windows Server Next OS. The server OS is based on the same core as Windows 10 client. Back in October Microsoft made available an test build of Windows Server Next, but it hasn’t released any update since then. Built-in Docker containerization support is already confirmed, but there is no word on when testers will be able to get their hands onto the feature.
