Extensive Windows roadmap surfaces for Germanium and Hudson Valley releases

Windows Central has revealed new details about Microsoft's intentions for future Windows releases. To recap, rumours appeared a few days ago that Microsoft hoped to replace Windows 11 next year, possibly as Windows 12. According to Windows Central, this is the case and will occur in June. However, even bigger plans are afoot for later in the year.

From an end-user perspective, existing Windows 11 installations may not notice a difference until the end of 2024. Currently, Windows Central expects Hudson Valley' to arrive between September and October. Thus, this would seem to be in line with Microsoft's annual hardware refresh. With that being said, the website states that Microsoft is still deciding whether to rebrand Windows 11 to Windows 12. 

Citing 1 billion of Windows' 1.4 billion users remaining on Windows 10, Windows Central reports that Microsoft is considering shipping Hudson Valley as Windows 11 to reduce further OS fragmentation. Nonetheless, Hudson Valley is rumoured to adopt a new Windows Shell that integrates with an improved Copilot. In other words, Copilot will run automatically as a background process by default.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft will lean into 'AI' in other areas, whether that is using NPUs to upscale video quality or machine learning to give wallpapers a parallax effect that reacts to inputs. In the meantime, Microsoft is expected to ship 'Germanium', effectively a bridge until Hudson Valley that contains ARM-targeted enhancements that Qualcomm and OEMs want to use for showcasing Snapdragon X Elite-powered machines. 

Purchase the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (Ryzen 9 7940HS/GeForce RTX 4060) on Amazon