The final weeks leading up to the release of a major feature update for Windows 10 always get very busy with lots of new builds being made available so that Microsoft can gather those last pieces of telemetry from Windows Insiders to fully understand the updates readiness for General Availability.
We have grown accustomed to how dynamic those last few weeks can be now that we have seen it happen for the initial release of Windows 10 (July 2015) and the subsequent availability of big feature releases like the November (November 2015) and Anniversary Updates (August 2016).
The Creators Update, which Microsoft announced last October, is now in those final hectic stages as it is quickly approaching its expected availability in the next few weeks. In fact, over the last month, if you blinked you may have missed a build release from Microsoft.
Over the last month Microsoft has released a total of 11 builds, seven for PCs and four for Mobile devices plus they have designated three of those builds for the Slow Ring (two for PCs and one for Mobile devices). That makes for a total of 45 builds that have been released for Windows Insiders, 27 for PCs and 18 for Mobile devices, since testing began on Redstone 2 back in August 2016.
For comparison, the Anniversary Update, aka Redstone 1, had a total of 49 builds released over its seven month testing cycle. That was 26 builds released for PCs and 23 for Mobile devices.
While we do not know if the number of builds released for the Creators Update will eventually exceed those pushed out for the Anniversary Update last year, we can catch you up on where everything stands with the currently available builds for Redstone 2. This snapshot should prove to be especially useful after the hectic pace over the last month.
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PC
Last Fast Ring Build Release: 15061 on 17 March 2017
Last Slow Ring Build Release: 15058 on 17 March 2017
Slow Ring ISOs Available for Download: 15058 on 17 March 2017 and 15048 on 15 March 2017
Mobile
Last Fast Ring Build Release: 15055 on 10 March 2017
Last Slow Ring Build Release: 15051 on 10 March 2017
Note: You can use our PC and Mobile build trackers for Redstone 2 to keep up to speed on all of this information.
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So what might the next steps be heading towards the General Availability of the Creators Update?
Well, I expect at least one more build to come out for sure since the current PC Fast Ring release, 15061, still has a desktop watermark and a system wide expiration.
I also looked back at the Anniversary Update release stats and saw that what eventually became the final build for both PC and Mobile, 14393, was released for both platforms at the same time. So I also suspect at least one last build will be released to sync the build numbers between PC and Mobile for the Creators Update.
However, just like it is expected to happen this year, the mobile build will be rolled out after the PC build has been released.
For last years Anniversary Update that happened just two weeks later plus both the PC and Mobile releases received a Day 1 update path to address last minute concerns that were picked up on over telemetry and the known issues list.
There is no reason to think that the release of the Creators Update shouldn't follow a very similar pattern.
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