Per Microsoft’s official Windows Release Health page for Windows 11 Version 23H2, it seems that the so-called 2023 Update is finally “broadly available” to all Windows 11 users with eligible devices, here in July 2024. This update’s release has been marred with some severe crashing and boot loop issues, particularly impacting users of virtualization software following a forced rollout phase, though these bugs and more minor Photos and Taskbar bugs have thankfully been fixed as of last week.
The Windows 11 23H2 update was originally intended as a simple, cumulative release of Windows 11’s 2023 advancements preceding it. Compared to the Windows 11 2022 cumulative update, the finalized 2023 Update now offers several new features in stable form.
The new features offered by 2023 Update versus the 2022 Update include Copilot, AI enhancements to Paint, several new accessibility features including voice typing and added live captions for several languages, an overhauled File Explorer with enhanced Gallery feature, and many miscellaneous tweaks and minor additions to Windows 11’s interface and security features.
It’s worth noting that some of these features, like Copilot, have been available for a while now— since June 2023 in preview Windows 11 builds— or even backported to Windows 10 before support for that OS ends properly. So, Windows Insiders and others who like opting into optional updates probably aren’t getting anything new with an official 23H2 release. But if you’ve held off on updating Windows 11 for as long as possible, particularly in the hopes of avoiding bugs, the 2023 Update is truly here to stay.
Newer feature additions, like those meant to come with the enhanced Copilot+ (for compatible PCs), as well as Wi-Fi 7 support, native 7-Zip and TAR support, won’t be coming to a finalized Windows release for all Windows 11 users until Windows 11 24H2. That major version of Windows isn’t expected until “later this year”, is currently only available on PCs that have already shipped with Copilot+ features already enabled, in particular laptops with Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors.
With any luck, Microsoft will have a much smoother time rolling out Windows 11 24H2 compared to all the roadblocks that emerged between 23H2’s Insider release in September 2023 and the finalized release all the way here in July 2024.