Microsoft quietly stomps into Windows 11 Zinc development semester

As we edge closer to the end of another year and look into the horizon towards 2023, Microsoft's Windows 11 development has reached a major milestone since it has now entered the Zinc development semester this month. This is originally supposed to be the 23H2 development semester if you can call it a semester anymore. That is because Copper began back in February and it lasted till November, which is around nine months. However, Microsoft has moved to a three-year cycle now (as we discuss later).

There were hints along the way too. After a servicing pipeline update in early November, there was a pretty long hiatus where no Dev Channel build was released for a very long time (for nearly a month) relatively speaking as generally, there are one, and very rarely even two Dev builds, in a week. This was eventually followed up by the Windows Server build 25246 and Windows 11 build 25247 in the client space which marked the beginning of the Zinc semester.

Over on the release cadence side, Microsoft has moved from its yearly Windows 11 feature update cycle to the new three-four-month phased rollout approach, which it internally refers to as "moments". The company looks pretty committed and serious about the upcoming moment update releases. Recently, a couple of internal test IDs were leaked which may belong to the upcoming Moment 3 and Moment 4 releases. These are expected to roll out next year. The latest Dev build 25262 also apparently has these velocity feature IDs enabled by default which suggests we will start receiving new features soon.

Via: Albacore (Twitter)

Microsoft quietly stomps into Windows 11 Zinc development semester