Windows 10 October 2018 Update could release as soon as next week

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Fresh evidence has emerged that the latest preview build of Windows 10 (17763) which emerged last week will in fact be the release version of the October 2018 Update, complete with the suggestion that the big rollout could start as soon as October 2.

This rumor – and it is firmly in speculative territory, make no mistake – has been aired by a denizen of the MyDigitalLife private forum (as spotted by Windows Latest).

It’s based on the fact that said forum user found ESD (electronic software delivery) images for build 17763, preparation that indicates this could well be the final release candidate otherwise known as the RTM build. Barring the discovery of any show-stopping bugs, that is, as happened with the last big update, imposing a considerable delay that meant it nearly missed its April target.

Anyhow, this discovery adds a little more weight to the possibility of this latest preview build being the finished thing, which we had already guessed at last week, given the fact that absolutely no features were introduced whatsoever.

In other words, only slight tweaking and finalizing took place with build 17763 – plus Microsoft subtly changed the language used in the blog post which was a further hint that things are fully done, too.

Furthermore, Microsoft has not only pushed this build out to fast and slow ring testers now, but has also deployed it on the HoloLens and Xbox One console, which again seems to underline that this is the RTM version.

Dubious date?

Another interesting snippet with this latest rumor is that the ‘products’ XML page has a reference to the release date of RS5 (Redstone 5, which is the October 2018 Update) RTM being ‘20181002’, or October 2. Indeed, the title of the XML page contains the date ‘2018_10_02’ as well.

All this is hardly the most solid evidence you could hope for, of course, and target dates can slip at any rate, as we’ve already noted. But still, cumulatively, it all does point in one direction: namely that next month’s big update will be released earlier in October rather than later.

As to whether it might emerge in less than a week on October 2, that seems like a rather tight timeframe given that the build still needs to hit the Release Preview ring yet (build 17763 made its way to testers on the slow ring on September 20, but hasn’t got any further than that yet).

That said, as Windows Latest points out, Microsoft is holding an event on October 2, so we might just see an unveiling of the update’s features there (including Storage Sense, improvements for gamers, and work on Mixed Reality), if not a full launch. As ever, time will tell, and we’ll just have to sit tight for now.

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