Microsoft Announces Windows 10 May 2021 (21H1) Feature Update

Good news for people who were eagerly waiting for the announcement of official name and release date of the next Windows 10 feature update which was codenamed as 21H1. Finally today Microsoft has announced the name and launch time of the upcoming feature update for Windows 10.

The feature update will be called “Windows 10 May 2021 Update” and will be available for manual download and installation in late May. Once released, if you want to automatic upgrade via Windows Update, you’ll need to wait for some more days or you can forcefully install the feature update by manually clicking on “Check for updates” button as mentioned here.

Once this feature update is released to public, following topic will help you in downloading, installing or upgrading to the new feature update:

How to Download and Upgrade to Windows 10 Feature Update

Windows 10 May 2021 Update will come with few UI changes and new features. Microsoft has released several testing builds of this new feature update after releasing last feature update. You can read more about these testing builds, changes and improvements in our following exclusive changelog topic:

Windows 10 (Dev Channel or Fast Ring) Insider Preview Builds Changelog

Microsoft announced in past that there will be 2 feature updates released for Windows 10 every year. Microsoft will follow a twice-per-year feature update release cycle for Windows 10. One feature update will be released in the first quarter of every year (most probably in April/May) and the other feature update will be released in last quarter of the year (most probably in September/October). So naming these feature updates after the month and year of release will be very easy to understand and easy to remember. Now there will be no more confusion between people which feature update is newer and which is older. Anyone can know by the name of the feature update that which update is new or latest. Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, Spring Creators Update, etc names were very confusing as well as irritating.

If we list all feature updates released for Windows 10, we find following list:

• Windows 10 November Update (version 1511) (codename Threshold 2 or TH2)
• Windows 10 Anniversary Update (version 1607) (codename Redstone 1 or RS1)
• Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703) (codename Redstone 2 or RS2)
• Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) (codename Redstone 3 or RS3)
• Windows 10 April 2018 Update (version 1803) (codename Redstone 4 or RS4)
• Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) (codename Redstone 5 or RS5)
• Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version 1903) (codename 19H1)
• Windows 10 November 2019 Update (version 1909) (codename 19H2)
• Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 20H1)
• Windows 10 October 2020 Update (version 20H2)

In future, we’ll see similar names of feature updates like May 2021 update, etc which will sound more practical and meaningful.

The build number of Windows 10 May 2021 Update should be 19043.928, the same 21H1 Insider Preview build of Windows 10 which was recently released to Beta and Release Preview channels of Windows Insiders. So if you are testing Windows 10 build 19043, you might be already using Windows 10 May 2021 Update in your computer.

So get ready to upgrade or clean install Windows 10 May 2021 Update in May and don’t forget to check out the following To Do list after installing new feature update:

[Guide] Things to Do After Installing Feature Update in Windows 10

NOTE:

If you don’t want the automatic upgrade to the upcoming Windows 10 feature update on your Windows 10 PC and want to block/prevent the new feature Update, you can take help of various methods given in following exclusive tutorial to skip this feature update:

How to Prevent or Skip Feature Update Installation in Windows 10

Now Microsoft will start focusing on the next feature update for Windows 10 which is codenamed 21H2 at the moment.

Also Check:

Too Much Confusion About So Many Windows 10 Versions