Microsoft still hasn’t officially announced Windows 11 version 22H2, despite the fact that the release is rumored to be about two weeks away. It is also known that at the time of the release of the update, not all planned functions will be available to users. For example, the tabbed interface in File Explorer should appear before the end of the year with one of the cumulative updates.
What’s more, Windows Central recently reported that Microsoft decided to move to a three-year Windows development cycle and canceled the 23H2 feature update, which was supposed to be released at the end of next year. Most of the features planned for 23H2 will be added to Windows 11 version 22H2 using “Moments” technology. Now it’s time to figure out how these two news are related.
In the PowerShell GitHub repository enthusiasts found references to internal builds under the numbers 229xx. According to the famous insider Albacorethey refer to the Moment 1 update, which will be released in October 2022 and will bring with it several new features, including tabs in File Explorer.
Full builds 228xx-229xx are required for internal testing. All changes from there are gradually transferred to build 22621 using cumulative updates. So the insiders on the Beta channel who upgraded to build 22622 are actually using the UI from builds 228xx-229xx.
It is worth noting that there are no differences between builds 22621 and 22622. If you are using the Release Preview version, then you also have the new features from the “Moment 1” package, but they are in a disabled state. To enable them, a small update weighing a few kilobytes is enough, and this is exactly what users will receive at the time of the release of Moment 1.
Albacore also says that internal work is already underway on the “Moment 2” update, which will be released next year. This is quite consistent with Windows Central’s information about the cancellation of 23H2 update and the release of new features using the “Moments” technology.