Windows 10 Anniversary Edition is due for release in July

Microsoft's Windows 10 Roadmap for business users reveals that the eagerly-anticipated Windows 10 Anniversary Edition is due to launch in July this year. At Build 2016 earlier in the month, Microsoft said that the big update was due to launch 'this summer', but did not get any more precise than this for the Redstone branch release.

But digging into roadmap documents, Microsoft makes it clear that it is aiming for a July release. The company has said that the update will bring "significant new features", including taskbar badge notifications and a revamped Start menu, but it is when talking about the new features that are coming to Cortana that the date is revealed.

For Windows Insiders on the Fast Ring, the current build 14316 gives a glimpse of some of the new enhancements -- including the arrival of Bash -- but there's much more on the horizon. One of the new capabilities coming to Cortana is the ability to set reminders via pen, and in selling these digital assistant updates to business users Microsoft lets slip the proposed release date:

Cortana is your truly personal digital assistant who works across all your Windows 10 devices to help you get things done. By learning more about you over time, Cortana becomes more useful every day. Cortana helps you be more productive by handling key tasks like sending emails, scheduling events, and using the power of Bing to quickly search your devices, the cloud, or the web. Cortana is also the best digital assistant at reminders, letting you set them in more ways including by pen, and [coming in July 2016] pulling reminder-relevant info from emails so you have the details at hand. And you can instantly capture your ideas by voice just by telling Cortana to take a note.

We don't yet know a precise date, or even if Microsoft is aiming for the beginning or the end of the month, but the company now has just a few weeks to play with. The launch of Windows 10 was plagued with delays, so it will be interesting to see if this release is more timely.

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