Windows 10 - Redstone Build 11082
On Dec 16, MS began the public testing of the next Windows 10 Branch codenamed Redstone with the release of build 11082 to Fast Ring testers.
As I suspected back on November 7 with the final release of the Threshold branch 10586 - that there would be a few weeks break. So it ended up being 5 weeks but here we are...
As has been the case through the later releases of TH2 - the Redstone 11082 build showed up quickly in Windows update and installed with out issue on my desktop, laptop and tablet devices.
From all appearances MS has gotten the build deployment and update process down cold. And considering what a user used to have to go through to update a Windows version - this new process is completely painless.
The machine I am writing this post on has been under continuous upgrade for over a year - so maybe 20+ builds and I've never had a serious problem. The only change that I ever needed to make was to update the video card to support WDDM 2.0 and DirectX 12. I as able accomplish that with a AMD Radeon R7 200 series card for $69.
The hardest part with these new builds however is trying to determine what exactly has changed. MS does not really document build changes well. They do publish a known issues log.
In theory 11082 is almost 100 builds newer than 10586 but in my short use - I can't tell you what has really changed and if it's any better. The official announcement post discusses OneCore changes - which is the shared core for Windows 10 - but can't I say - wow this build is dramatically faster or more stable - not really.
With Redstone - MS also states that there will be a more rapid pace to build releases - so maybe every 2 - 3 weeks.
Also apps are still updating at a pretty regular clip. Almost every week I see updates to some part of the native app portfolio. But as with the Core OS without clear documentation on what was fixed or new features - it's hard to test and say yes this is better or no this isn't better.
But some things have not changed. I still am not using Edge as a browser and from other public feedback sources not many others are either. I don't use IE either. After many years of dominance in the browser space it looks as though MS is loosing ground in this space to Chrome, etc.. and from some public monitoring of this market - pretty rapidly.
My position with Windows 10 has not changed. If you are a Windows 8.x user - you really need to upgrade to get the latest apps. The app cliff as i have called it is true and all the latest gains in the native apps are all on Windows 10 and not on Windows 8 and will probably never be.. Windows 8 is going to fade to black pretty quickly..
For Windows 7 users - Windows 10 is very stable and dramatically faster than Windows 7 assuming you have newer hardware. You may have to do a video card upgrade like I did - but it won't cost you a fortune. The new UI takes a little bit to get used to - but in desktop mode the learning curve is not that huge.
For Redstone itself I personally think the biggest beneficiary will be a device we haven't seen yet - which will be the Intel based "Surface" phone. Only time will tell - but MS is all in with Windows 10 and how well these branches advance features, speed, stability, platform support will be interesting to watch...
As I suspected back on November 7 with the final release of the Threshold branch 10586 - that there would be a few weeks break. So it ended up being 5 weeks but here we are...
As has been the case through the later releases of TH2 - the Redstone 11082 build showed up quickly in Windows update and installed with out issue on my desktop, laptop and tablet devices.
From all appearances MS has gotten the build deployment and update process down cold. And considering what a user used to have to go through to update a Windows version - this new process is completely painless.
The machine I am writing this post on has been under continuous upgrade for over a year - so maybe 20+ builds and I've never had a serious problem. The only change that I ever needed to make was to update the video card to support WDDM 2.0 and DirectX 12. I as able accomplish that with a AMD Radeon R7 200 series card for $69.
The hardest part with these new builds however is trying to determine what exactly has changed. MS does not really document build changes well. They do publish a known issues log.
In theory 11082 is almost 100 builds newer than 10586 but in my short use - I can't tell you what has really changed and if it's any better. The official announcement post discusses OneCore changes - which is the shared core for Windows 10 - but can't I say - wow this build is dramatically faster or more stable - not really.
With Redstone - MS also states that there will be a more rapid pace to build releases - so maybe every 2 - 3 weeks.
Also apps are still updating at a pretty regular clip. Almost every week I see updates to some part of the native app portfolio. But as with the Core OS without clear documentation on what was fixed or new features - it's hard to test and say yes this is better or no this isn't better.
But some things have not changed. I still am not using Edge as a browser and from other public feedback sources not many others are either. I don't use IE either. After many years of dominance in the browser space it looks as though MS is loosing ground in this space to Chrome, etc.. and from some public monitoring of this market - pretty rapidly.
My position with Windows 10 has not changed. If you are a Windows 8.x user - you really need to upgrade to get the latest apps. The app cliff as i have called it is true and all the latest gains in the native apps are all on Windows 10 and not on Windows 8 and will probably never be.. Windows 8 is going to fade to black pretty quickly..
For Windows 7 users - Windows 10 is very stable and dramatically faster than Windows 7 assuming you have newer hardware. You may have to do a video card upgrade like I did - but it won't cost you a fortune. The new UI takes a little bit to get used to - but in desktop mode the learning curve is not that huge.
For Redstone itself I personally think the biggest beneficiary will be a device we haven't seen yet - which will be the Intel based "Surface" phone. Only time will tell - but MS is all in with Windows 10 and how well these branches advance features, speed, stability, platform support will be interesting to watch...
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