Some say that Windows 11 22H2 Update is already shipping

Windows Art

Sneaky, sneaky! It appears that Microsoft has quietly started shipping the Windows 11 22H2 Update, at least inside new laptops if not to general users who are waiting to get their hands on the final bits.

Officially, that is.

What will be the first major update for Windows 11, the version 22H2 release is on track to launch later this month. Though, as is tradition now, there has been radio silence from Redmond on when user can expect the rollout.

However, it appears that some users already access to this latest OS.

As posted in a forum thread, someone ordered a new Dell laptop, but they were surprised to notice that it came with a new boot animation. This led to the realization that the company had actually shipped a device that was packing Windows 11 22H2 right out of the box.

Their words:

“I was not sure if this was actually shipping or not, but I just received a Dell laptop that has Windows 11 22H2, build 22621.521. I thought something was different as it had the new circle animation on boot.

Has anyone else picked up new hardware with Win11 22H2 installed?”

Interesting.

Earlier reports had pointed to a September 20 general availability of this next feature update. Rumors claimed that build 22621.382 was to be the one pushed out the gate. However, the user above claims that the build that arrived on their Dell machine was build 22621.521 instead.

Windows Update Version 22H2

This, apparently, is a cumulative update that Microsoft released a couple of days ago as KB5017321 in the Release Preview channel alongside the Patch Tuesday updates.

Microsoft did not, however, publish any support articles or blog posts detailing the changes, something that has become a bit of a habit recently for the software titan.

We seem very close!