Even though the “full” or “final” release of Windows 11 24H2 won’t be available with all the expected functionality until the 4th quarter of this year, it is going to ship earlier on new ARM64 devices that will be available in mid-June. To prepare for that, Microsoft is already pushing the core Windows 11 24H2 bits (minus features to be added later) into the Insider Release Preview channel. See the Insider blog for details. Features included (so far):

• Sudo for Windows
• Wi-Fi 7 support
• Better integrated compressed file support (e.g. 7-zip, tar) in File Explorer

If you’re like me and like to use virtual machines for testing, you can download the ISOs too. There are two available from https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/05/22/releasing-windows-11-version-24h2-to-the-release-preview-channel/:

• Windows 11 Insider Preview (Release Preview Channel) – Build 26100.560
• Windows 11 Insider Preview Enterprise (Release Preview Channel) – Build 26100.560

These are both x64 (AMD64) versions, not ARM64 versions, but that’s OK (for now at least). There’s also no LTSC version yet, but there has been an announcement around it on the IoT blog. (The new feature list basically says “this is Windows 11” — makes sense since the last LTSC release was for Windows 10.)

Build 26100 is the final build for this release (while the .560 patch level will continue to increase). Once you’ve downloaded the ISO, you can use it directly to install, or you can convert the INSTALL.WIM file included in the ISO to a VHDX file that you can directly boot into a VM. If you don’t remember how to do that, you can use this script (a newer, forked version of what you would find on the PowerShell Gallery) like so:

If you use that as the parent for a differencing disk for a new Hyper-V VM, you can then boot any number of VMs from the same base/parent VHDX.

If you are into bare metal testing, you can use the INSTALL.WIM with your favorite imaging tool (e.g. MDT or SCCM); it works exactly the same as previous Windows 11 versions. There is also an updated ADK version available for download, based on Windows 11 24H2, and it addresses issues with previous ADK releases: VBScript works, no need to worry about applying KBs to it, etc. That ADK isn’t supported with SCCM yet, but it works fine. (MDT doesn’t support Windows 11 at all, but it will work fine with this ADK — just keep in mind that these ADKs don’t include x86/32-bit boot images, so there are some workarounds needed for that — see this post for more details.)

There aren’t yet any updated GPOs or security baselines available for this 24H2 release. You can extract the GPO templates from the C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions directory of the 24H2 install though.

Remember, your time is running out to either move from Windows 10 to Windows 11, or to write Microsoft a big check for extended support. If you haven’t started broadly deploying Windows 11 yet, you might as well start with these Windows 11 24H2 bits (even as release preview). If you aren’t up to that, then work with Windows 11 23H2. But it’s well past time to get moving down that path.