Microsoft has launched a Windows Roadmap to help users discover when new features will be added to Windows. Here’s how you can use it.
It’s not easy to discover when new features are coming to Windows. Sometimes, you may not know what features are being released either. You might suddenly come across a new feature after a Windows Update has been installed on your computer.
This is what the Roadmap addresses, it sort of gives you a heads-up. It’s quite impressive actually, the page lists all upcoming features and improvements that are currently being tested in the Windows Insider Program.
Each listing has a description that explains what a feature does, and links to a relevant article on the Windows Insider Blog that has some additional details, so you can learn more about it. You can also find out the current status of the development, i.e., whether it is in preview, or gradually rolling out, or is generally available to all users.
The Roadmap also gives you an ETA about when we can expect a specific improvement or feature to be available, this is a tentative date.
There is a search bar at the top of the page, which you can use to find something specific. For example, you could type “Explorer”, and the list will filter the results to only show improvements that are heading to File Explorer.
There are some options that are available below the search box. These are filters that allow you to refine the results further. For instance, you can use them to view the features that will be available for a specific version of Windows 11, such as 23H2 or 24H2. Similarly, you can filter results by platform, all PCs or just Copilot+ PCs. You can even filter the results by the status of a feature, and which channel it is currently being tested in.
Now of course, just because something is listed on the Windows Roadmap does not mean that the feature has been finalized. Microsoft could decide to remove something if the feedback that the company received from testers was negative. Or it might delay a feature to make further improvements, and testing.
The announcement on the Redmond company’s blog highlights that the Windows Roadmap could be very useful for IT admins who manage several workstations at the office, as they can use the information to plan ahead. But, it could be handy for regular users too, as it can help them decide whether to defer updates if they perceive some features as annoyances. e.g. Windows Recall
You could skip an upgrade to a major version entirely, but this involves changing a policy or requires a third-party utility like InControl to set your preferred target release. A lot of users are still on Windows 11 23H2, having avoided the upgrade to Windows 11 24H2, due to various bugs that were introduced in the latest version.
For once, Microsoft has done the right thing by launching the Windows Roadmap. But whether users will like the features that it adds to Windows is a completely different story.
