At its Build 2016 developer conference in San Francisco, Microsoft has announced its next big update, called the Anniversary Update, which will be available this summer.

The new update will bring plenty of new improvements including changes to the Windows Store. The most important will be the integration of both Windows and Xbox platforms. This will bring some big games to the PC, including the showcased Forza Motorsport 6: Apex, which was running on DirectX 12.

Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, also revealed a bit more details regarding Microsoft Universal Windows Platform (UWP), which will get both FreeSync and G-Sync as well as multi-GPU support, mods, display overlays and more in the future.

Another big update is the Project Centennial, a Win32-to-UWP converter, allowing developers to convert games to the UWP platform. Microsoft demonstrated it by showing Age of Empires II HD and The Witcher 3. This will also allow developer to generate apps that can be sold in the Windows store and these will have all the benefits of natively developed UWP apps.

Kevin Gallo, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows, also unveiled a new Windows subsystem which allows native Linux binaries to run on Windows. The upcoming Anniversary Update will also include a Windows kernel module that will allow users to access the Linux kernel API.

In addition to these improvements, the Anniversary Update will also bring some visual and functional improvements, including integration of the Windows Hello with Edge browser, the new Windows Ink, an API for pen input with Cortana integration, as well as plenty of other updates.

It appears that the Anniversary Update will be the biggest one so far and it is obvious that Microsoft's focus is on Windows gaming and integration of Xbox platform. It is also quite good to see that Microsoft will not close its UWP platform and that it will eventually support mods, as well as bring all features that are currently missing.







Source: Microsoft.com.