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We’re at a rare moment in Microsoft history, when the company that defined the modern PC is supporting a single version of its flagship operating system. Windows 10 is officially unsupported until October 2025. According to Microsoft’s most recent quarterly earnings report, Windows 11 now stands alone in the market with one billion active users. In October 2026, Windows 11 will celebrate its fifth anniversary – which is traditionally the halfway point of Microsoft’s 10-year support lifecycle.
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All this suggests that the next version of Windows – let’s call it Windows 12 – will be here before you know it, ready or not. In fact, this week PCWorld, a reliable source of technology news, published a shocking report (translated from its German counterpart, PC-Welt) claiming that Windows 12 will arrive in 2026. on reddit, A post discussing the article It went viral, garnering 18,000 upvotes and inspiring nearly 7,000 comments.
Then, a few hours later, executive editor Brad Chakos posted a apology and refund: “This article…does not meet PCWorld’s standards and should not have been published.” (Full disclosure: I was once the managing editor PC WorldWhen it was a print magazine. Writing this kind of return would have been my worst nightmare,)
Long story short: No, Windows 12 is not coming in 2026. Microsoft has already announced that Windows 11 will receive its usual feature update – version 26H2 – later this year. Confusingly, there is also a brand new version 26H1 that will be arriving in the next few months, which is built for the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 processor. Earlier this year, Pavan Davuluri, head of the Windows division, publicly apologized to angry and disappointed Windows 11 customers: “This year you’ll see us focus on addressing the problems we consistently hear from customers: improving system performance, reliability, and the overall Windows experience.”
Plus: Windows 11 hits 1 billion users – and they’re angry
But that doesn’t mean Microsoft isn’t working on the next generation of Windows. Last December, I put together this post in which I took my best guess as to what we might see in that product — and when it was likely to arrive.
I want to warn you: you probably won’t like my predictions.
Everything old is new again
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If you want to know what’s next from Microsoft, just look at its past failures.
Look at the first release of Edge, which was built on a heavily modified version of the Internet Explorer engine. It failed miserably, so Microsoft scrapped it and replaced it with a browser built on the open-source Chromium codebase, while retaining the name. It is now a core part of Windows 11 and is tolerated by web designers and end users in a way that its predecessor could never manage.
Also: I’ve used Windows for decades, but I tried Linux to see if it’s really ‘easier’ now – and one thing surprised me
Or how about Cortana? That was Microsoft’s attempt to create a digital assistant to compete with Apple’s Siri. It was launched with much fanfare in 2014 and flopped. It was informally rejected in 2020. But Microsoft hasn’t given up on the idea of a smart assistant, which now exists in a much more prominent capacity in the form of CoPilot. You may have heard of it.
Microsoft’s biggest failure – for the record books – was the Surface RT, a tablet powered by Arm processors. It ran Windows RT, which supported an extremely limited selection of apps from the Windows Store. People hated hardware and software!
I regret to tell you that I’m placing my bet on Microsoft reviving some of the key ideas from that all-time failure.
The company has tried twice before, but was not successful. The much-awaited Windows 10 S was first introduced in 2017. It was designed as a locked-down OS that could only run apps from the Windows Store and could not install third-party apps or drivers distributed using the standard Windows Installer. It has been renamed S Mode in Windows 10 and has been almost discontinued on Windows 11.
And then there’s the ill-fated Windows 10X, which was announced in October 2019, just months before the start of the global pandemic. According to my former colleague Mary Jo Foley, Windows 10X was “designed to provide some of the same benefits as Windows 10 in S Mode… such as reduced ‘Win Rot’, improved ‘Instant On’, reduced attack surface, and provision of more seamless updates.” Most interestingly, it was supposed to run older Win32 apps in containers.
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Microsoft shelved Windows 10X in 2021 so it can focus on Windows 11. But I just have to believe that developers are still working feverishly to reintroduce those concepts in the next version of Windows.
Whatever I have written here is not based on inside information. This is speculation on my part, but given my focus on Microsoft’s track record over three decades, I believe most of this should be a pretty safe bet.
You’ll need AI-optimized hardware
AI is not going away. Microsoft is embedding its CoPilot features in every nook, cranny, crevice, and Settings page of Windows 11. It’s also expecting people to pay for the privilege – those data centers are expensive to build, and they rack up pretty serious electricity bills every month.
I expect the next version of Windows to require a PC that meets Microsoft’s CoPilot+ standard, which requires a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that also has higher memory and storage standards.
Also: How to Upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Pro – Without Paying More
If those specifications are implemented, the result will be similar to what happened with Windows 11’s hardware requirements, with a large number of older machines unable to upgrade beyond Windows 11.
My guess is that Arm-based systems will be preferred for home users, as businesses will stick with Intel and AMD (though this may change).
Your old apps may not work
There are many good reasons to design an operating system that will only run apps from trusted repositories (including its own store). Apple seems to have done a good job with that model on the iPhone and iPad, and you know Microsoft would love to do the same with Windows. This will block the most common sources of malware and reliability problems. Unfortunately, it may also block the one app you absolutely need to run.
Also: This is why Windows PCs are more annoying
The good news is that the Microsoft Store and Wingate repositories now include a large number of apps. I am using an amazing app called UniGetUI (available in the Microsoft Store!), which wraps an easy-to-use command-line interface around Wingate and the Store. After using that app for several months, I’ve found only a few programs that require an old-fashioned installer. This is a huge difference from the old Windows Store days.
My prediction? The Home edition of Windows 12 will allow you to use only apps obtained from trusted sources. If you want to install Win32 apps downloaded from an external source, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro or Enterprise edition, and those apps will run in sandboxed containers (or even in Microsoft’s cloud-based Windows 365 PCs) so they can’t do any harm.
Don’t get me wrong: These steps will be good for the Windows ecosystem. But enthusiasts and traditionalists probably won’t be happy about what they see as a loss of freedom. And we know from experience how quickly a Microsoft product can get a bad reputation based on misunderstandings and misunderstandings.
For advanced features you will need a paid subscription
At the beginning of the Windows 10 era, I wrote “Windows 10 subscriptions aren’t happening. Here’s why”. This prediction has persisted for almost 10 years, but I think Microsoft has finally laid the groundwork to start charging a monthly subscription fee for Windows.
Also: Hate Windows 11? Here’s how you can make it work like Windows 10
This doesn’t mean that the traditional Windows business model is dying. I believe most PC users will still purchase Windows preinstalled on new PCs, with the cost included in the price of the hardware. Instead of calling that underlying OS Windows Home Edition, let’s call it Windows Core. (Microsoft has been working on various iterations of this idea for years — Windows OneCore, Windows CoreOS, and Windows Lite, for example.) If you’re happy with that baseline feature set, you can keep using it. Like a timeshare salesman, Microsoft will harass you with cross-sells, upsells, and shameless promotions for services like OneDrive, Microsoft 365, and Xbox Live. Just keep saying no.
But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Pro version go away, replaced by a subscription-based package that gives you all the Pro features for a monthly fee instead of a one-time license fee. If I were a Microsoft product manager, I’d call it Microsoft 365 Pro, and I’d give a lot of credit to the Copilot token to justify putting a $10 or $20 monthly price tag on the package.
It’s a time-tested model: Enterprise administrators are paying for Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licenses that are designed exactly like this. It’s time to move up to the Pro version for that model.
It will be here before you are ready.
If Windows 12 follows the same timeline as Windows 11, here’s how it will play out:
- Windows 11 development will slow down in 2026 as Windows 12 development speeds up behind the scenes.
- The last (minor) feature update for Windows 11 will come in 2027.
- See a preview release of Windows 12 in July 2027.
- Release date? My money is on October 2027.
What will it be called?
The obvious choice is Windows 12, but Microsoft has a history of updating across the board with “game changer” releases, and everything the company has done in the Satya Nadella era suggests it expects it to be a game-changer. Think Windows 95, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.
Also: Microsoft has lost its way
Given Microsoft’s current branding obsession with its AI features, it’s an easy jump: Windows Copilot Edition, anyone?
