Just don’t call it the Spring Creators Update

Following the steady pace of its semi-annual update cadence, Microsoft today launched the latest version of Windows 10. For the most part, there are no major revelations here since Microsoft’s Windows Insider program now regularly provides early access to all the new features to those who are brave enough to try out pre-release software. But there was one major surprise (at least for Microsoft watchers): the name.

Everybody expected this next release to be called the “Windows 10 Spring Creators Update.” But it’s not. Instead, the company opted for “Windows 10 April 2018.” And thankfully, despite what looks like a bit of a delay, the company still managed to announce this update in April, even though the majority of users will have to wait until May to get it.

“Spring Creators Update” would have made some sense, since the last update, which launched in October 2017, was called the “Fall Creators Update.” But that wasn’t a great name to begin with, especially since October isn’t exactly autumn in the southern hemisphere.

I actually can’t help but think that even “Fall Creators Update” wasn’t Microsoft’s original plan for naming the last Windows 10 release. But at least it did have some degree of personality and conveyed what Microsoft was aiming for, even if the whole ‘creator’ thing never quite made all that much sense to me given Windows’ mainstream focus. Either way, though, going forward, all of the Windows 10 releases will have generic “Windows 10 [month] [year]” names. It’s not big cats, or places in California, or alphabetical dessert foods, but at least there’ll be no confusion about when exactly a given update was released…