Exclusive: Windows 10 Creators Update set to be released on April 2017

Last October at the Windows 10 event in New York City, Microsoft officially unveiled the Windows 10 Creators Update, codenamed "Redstone 2." At the event, Microsoft stated that the update will be released in "early 2017" but we didn't know when exactly the update will arrive.

Until now, anyway.

Per my sources, Microsoft will be releasing the Windows 10 Creators Update this April. While the update initially had a version number of 1703 in Insider Builds leading to speculation that it would be released in March 2017, we can reveal that the final version number will actually be 1704 for an April release. This is not the first time that Microsoft has changed version numbers in Insider Preview releases, the firm previously changed the Xbox's Anniversary Update release number from 1607 to 1608 last year.

For those unfamiliar, the version number for the update indicates its release month and year: the "17" in 1704 indicates the release year – in this case, 2017 and the "04" indicates the month of release: April.

Like the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft will gradually roll out the Creators Update to ensure the best experience for Windows 10 users, but users will be able to manually upgrade to the Creators Update if they want to.

Creators Update should be "feature locked" by the end of January

Microsoft is currently in the process of finalizing things for the Windows 10 Creators Update. The Creators Update is expected to be "feature locked" by mid/late January which means most of the shipping features will be present by that period. That certainly doesn't mean that the update is "complete" per se, as Microsoft will be working on polishing the new features and fixing bugs before the release.

The company has already started planning for the next update, codenamed "Redstone 3" which is expected to bring a range of new features, including an improved design language for the OS. I was told that Redstone 3 is planned to be released before the end of 2017, but things are in the very early stage of development, so there isn't a set date just yet.

Do keep in mind that these are Microsoft's internal plans, and the company may change their plans whenever they want. But at this point of development, it's unlikely their plans will see any major change.

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