Windows 10 Redstone update wave 1, also known as RS1, slated for the summer

Microsoft has been releasing new Redstone builds to Windows 10 Insiders for quite some time now and we expect that to continue until the commercial release of the Redstone update, the release of which is expected to be in June of this year. But now, new information points to the first wave of the Redstone update possibly arriving in July instead.

Microsoft’s documentation for Xbox developers says the following (the page is now down):

“Xbox runs Windows 10, version 1607, which means that it shares the same core operating system as other devices in the Windows 10 family: desktop, mobile, and HoloLens. But, because this is the first release of the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) on Xbox, there are some feature areas that haven’t reached the same level of support on Xbox as they have on other devices. In this topic are details on some of the feature areas that your UWP app might use that don’t currently function as fully on Xbox. All APIs are callable and will fail gracefully if they’re unsupported. As we flight and service Windows, we’ll continue implementing, testing, and bugfixing until all of the Universal device family API surface is fully operational on Xbox.”

If Microsoft sticks with its policy of assigning version numbers to its major updates for Windows 10 — and we believe it will — “1607” should point to a  July 2016 release because the version number represents the year and the month in which the update is released. For example, the November update, also known as Threshold 2, was released in November last year and featured a version number of 1511.

A lot of Redstone news yet to come

Although Windows 10 Preview Redstone builds are already available to Insiders, we can’t be sure about the details related to Microsoft’s upcoming major update for Windows 10. We do know that it will arrive in two waves, just like the Threshold update did (the RTM release of Windows 10 in July and the November update after), but release dates of both waves are still uncertain.

It was widely believed that the first wave would arrive in June but now that is subject to change. Also, people thought the second wave would have been ready by late 2016 but ultimately was pushed to 2017. Until Microsoft confirms anything, we can’t be sure.

As for possible features of the Redstone update, Microsoft released a few of them already with Microsoft Edge extensions the most notable addition so far, but we don’t know what else the company has prepared for us. Microsoft’s annual Build conference is starting today and the company promised it would talk about the Redstone update at the event. So, it’s possible we’ll have more information about the Redstone update and its features after the conference. (If you want to watch the conference live from your browser, you can do so from this link.)

As soon as Microsoft reveals more details about the upcoming Redstone update for Windows 10, we’ll make sure to let you know.