Windows Roadmap: Caution, Construction Ahead

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

A new Windows Roadmap from Microsoft documents some major and minor improvements that may become generally available in the near term, and provides information about some changes already in preview or generally available. However, it appears incomplete and downplays the reality that many Windows 11 users cannot access last year’s Windows 11 Annual Feature Update (24H2), which is still being throttled while Microsoft attempts to fix problems.

Filtering Required

One nice feature of the new roadmap is the ability to filter the entries based on a variety of criteria. For example, information can be filtered by Platform (Windows 11 PC versus Windows Copilot+ PC), Version (23H2 versus 24H2), Status (Preview versus Generally Available), and Channel (Retail versus Insider). For example, selecting “Windows 11 PC,” “23H2,” “Gradually Rolling Out,” and “All” shows five entries that started rolling out in Mar. 2025:

In addition to the information used to filter the entries, each entry also provides data such as the Rollout start, Expected availability, More (release) information, and Notes, with entries such as where customers can get the update.

Many Features Not Enterprise Focused

Many of the features in the roadmap are not likely to interest enterprises. For example, “Support gamepad navigation of software keyboard,” is more relevant to consumers, whereas “Improved CPU calculation” may interest consumers and Enterprises. But perhaps a bigger issue with the roadmap is that it has significant gaps. For example, searching for “Quick Machine Recovery” does not find a roadmap entry for work Microsoft is doing to automatically detect, diagnose, and resolve critical issues, which is now available in the Windows Insider Preview Beta Channel for Windows 11, version 24H2. This feature helps when a device gets stuck in the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE), which can require considerable time and expertise to resolve.

Getting a Complete Picture

If I were designing this kind of roadmap, I would merge what they’ve built with the known issues with Windows 24H2, so that customers might now when they would be able to get the latest Annual Update. After all, with Windows 11 24H2, it has been six months since general availability, and many users still are not able to get the update, while others are suffering from widespread problems and a general lack of stability after updating. These people will not get the value of the full term of the 24H2 support window through no fault of their own.