Windows 11’s next major update is only coming to a few laptops – but that could be a blessing in disguise

• Windows 11 26H1 is confirmed as being for Snapdragon X2 laptops only
• That was always the likelihood, and Asus has let the truth slip, although we didn’t get word directly from Microsoft
• Version 26H1 won’t have any new features – it will just work under the hood to pave the way for the X2 SoC – but one worry is bugs creeping in

Windows 11 26H1 has been confirmed to be exclusively for PCs with Arm processors – specifically Qualcomm Snapdragon chips – by a laptop manufacturer.

Windows Central reports that Asus has said its ZenBook A14 and A16 laptops, which have the new Snapdragon X2 inside, will ship with version 26H1 of Windows 11 installed around March or April. However, the ZenBook S14 and S16 notebooks emerging at around the same time which have AMD and Intel CPUs will run with Windows 11 25H2 (the current version of the OS).

Microsoft told us late last year that version 26H1 will include “platform changes to support specific silicon” and that it wasn’t an update for 25H2, leading to speculation that it’d be a specific release just for Snapdragon laptops.

This is now effectively confirmed, though not directly by Microsoft yet, it should be noted.

What this means is that Windows 11 26H1 is being built specifically for these Arm PCs with underlying changes to support the new Snapdragon X2 processors from Qualcomm.

In other words, there are no new features with version 26H1, with not a sprinkling of AI in sight (ahem). There’ll just be a bunch of tinkering under the hood – all stuff you won’t actually see – to ensure that Snapdragon X2 chips run fine with Windows 11. It’s all about ironing out wrinkles that may trip the X2 silicon up, as well as applying performance enhancements for these CPUs.

None of the contents of this update will be necessary for x86 CPUs (AMD and Intel), so they won’t get 26H1. Instead, Microsoft will work on 26H2 and adding new features there, which all Windows 11 PCs – Arm, AMD, and Intel – will receive later this year (in the same timeframe that the big annual update is normally released, around September to October).

Analysis: here’s hoping ‘Bromine’ won’t be as volatile as its namesake

As Windows Central points out, the new underlying platform for Windows 26H1 is codenamed Bromine. You may recall that Windows 11 24H2 first arrived on Arm PCs, too, in mid-2024 – before its general release to all computers later that year – and it came atop a new platform codenamed Germanium.

So, what Microsoft is doing now mirrors the release of the original Snapdragon chips in 2024, whereby an early version of the OS is being deployed – with no new features, just those platform changes underneath – to ensure these laptops work well. The only difference is we have an ‘H1’ release this time around (presumably because it’s so early in the year, or maybe just for better differentiation).

There’s nothing much to see here, in short, but one alarm bell is ringing for me. If you recall, Windows 11 24H2 came with a whole load of bugs, and it was my personal theory that the switch to Germanium underneath, and the ton of adjusting and tweaking therein, could be one reason for the avalanche of glitches that crawled forth after that release.

I am seriously hoping we don’t get a repeat performance of this with Bromine, considering Microsoft is again messing about with the guts of its desktop OS. However, at least this time around Microsoft is merely refining what it already has in place for Arm silicon, and it’s not going to be as much of an effort as implementing Germanium was. So in theory, there’s far less in the way of vines here that Microsoft could trip on or become entangled with.

Theories are great, of course, until they’re put into practice, and we shall see how that shakes out, but the point remains: a platform shift like this carries risks in terms of unwanted side-effects. Forgive my pessimism, but Microsoft can make a simple change like bringing dark mode to File Explorer result in a persistent, seriously irritating and jarring flashbang bug. Or a straightforward monthly update can entirely break Task Manager so it doesn’t actually close anymore.

Bromine should not be a problem in the grand scheme of things, but neither should those bugs have been, and others besides.

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