Could Microsoft have just released the final Windows 10 Anniversary Update build to Insiders?

By Harrison Kaminsky July 24, 2016

windows 10 insider preview 14955 outlook mail calendar narrator upgrade — Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

As Microsoft prepares to end free Windows 10 upgrades for users, the software giant is concurrently readying the operating system’s Anniversary Update — and the final version before it goes public might be complete.

With time running low before the Aug. 2 release date, Microsoft has been pumping out release builds through the Windows Insider program, which allows users to sign up for early versions of the OS previously available only to developers. Windows 10 Build 14393 was released through the program last week in the Fast Ring, where users can immediately install the very latest builds to receive new features as soon as possible.

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But 24 hours later, when Microsoft moved the build to the Slow Ring — indicating there are no known issues with it — we began to wonder whether Build 14393 could be the final Insider release before Release to Manufacturing (RTM).

Things got even clearer on Friday, Windows SuperSite pointed out, when Microsoft released an update to 14393 instead of an entirely new build. In the 6.2MB patch (KB3176925), Microsoft simply updated “the specific elements of the operating system that need to be fixed. If the Windows 10 Anniversary Update was going to be a build different than 14393 then they would have been more likely to issue a full build update to address these bugs,” SuperSite noted.

As listed in the Windows 10 Feedback Hub, here’s what was fixed in the cumulative update.

We have fixed an issue where keyboard input on some Windows tablet devices would not rotate to landscape normally.
We have fixed an issue that results in Windows Updates being delayed on systems with Connected Standby.
We have fixed a problem with text input with Korean Input Method Editor (IME) in some Store apps.
We fixed an issue causing Store apps to stop launching due to a licensing issue.
We have fixed an issue with apps that synchronize using DDE for inter-process communication.

It seems this really could be the final version before RTM. But it’s possible, as SuperSite suggests, that Microsoft could bump the build number from 14393 to “say 14400, just to give the build a nice round number. That would let them start from a clean build designation just like they did with 10240 (the original Windows 10 release) and 10586, the November Update.”

If you’re not a Windows Insider, look out for the official Anniversary Update around Aug. 2.

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