Rumor: Microsoft has put Windows 10X development on hold

Microsoft has reportedly ceased development of Windows 10X. It is not known whether and if so when the company will pick it up again, but according to the rumors, the release would in any case no longer happen this year.

The rumor comes from Petri’s Brad Sams, who frequently releases Microsoft news, and is confirmed by Zac Bowden of Windows Central. According to Sams, Windows 10X isn’t coming this year and as the OS currently looks, it probably never will. Whether and if so in what form Windows 10X has a future, he does not report. In any case, Microsoft would have focused on Windows 10 and put the development of 10X on hold, he claims to have heard from sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans.

According to Windows Central, Microsoft stopped offering internal self-hosted builds of Windows 10X for Surface devices in February and removed the images from the internal portal. Microsoft would focus on developing visual changes and interface improvements for Windows 10, among other things, which it is working on under the code name Sun Valley. Those should appear with the feature release in the fall, and some of the changes will come from Windows 10X. Microsoft recently announced that there are 1.3 billion activations for Windows 10 and with major changes coming for that OS, there would be little reason to put a lot of effort into Windows 10X.

Microsoft announced Windows 10X in 2019 as a lightweight OS for dual-screen devices. A year ago, the company announced that it would initially target single-screen devices with 10X, with dual-screen devices to follow later, without specifying a release date.