Rumor has it that the 2022 big update for Windows 11 (known as 22H2 or “Sun Valley 2”) is about to hit RTM. This means that you are theoretically ready.
RTM stands for “Release to Manufacturing” and, as the name implies, means that the software is complete and ready for release.
No further features will be added after the RTM build is declared, but development is still underway as everything has been thoroughly tested, but we found bugs and issues before the full release. Crushing is everything.
according to Windows latest, About to reach the RTM milestone in Windows 11. This is a term from a normal internal source that is “familiar” with the progress of the OS. Sure, this should happen in the coming weeks, so by the end of May, in theory, the RTM version could be here.
Analysis: Guessing game around the release date of Windows 1122 H2
I’m still adding a healthy amount of skepticism to this claim, but to be fair, it makes some sense given what I’ve heard from Microsoft recently. This means that the latest test build of Windows 11 has removed the preview watermark from the desktop. This usually indicates that Microsoft has stopped adding features and is ready to start the above tests and subsequent testing processes.
That said, the company was careful to make it clear that removing the watermark mentioned above “doesn’t mean it’s done”, so obviously we’re at the top of the Windows 1122 H2 release. I’m not on the front line. However, moving to RTM in the near future, perhaps by the end of the month, seems like a realistic possibility. Certainly, if it’s not May, it seems very likely that RTM will occur in June.
It’s hard to call if this means that the 22H2 update could come early rather than later this year. The testing process can last for a long time, so even if you reach RTM at the end of May, as predicted here, there may be months to months of readjustments and tweaks. It may still end. For example, it will be released by September or October 2022.
This seems to be the kind of time frame that rumored factories like these days, but again, I don’t know anything for sure. It all depends on how smoothly the bug bashing in Windows 11 goes. Early rumors seemed to suggest that a break cover for Windows 11 22 H2 could be seen very early in H2, even in July, for example. So, in theory, it can still happen.