When Microsoft suddenly shifted their Skip Ahead development branch to 20H1, the first feature update of 2020, instead of this fall’s 19H2 release everyone thought this was a big deal and meant something was changing with Windows 10 development.

Turns out that it is not all that dramatic and just relates to taking time to get the code base synched up with Azure as explained by Mary Jo Foley over on ZD Net.

Now that we understand the why behind 20H1’s early arrival in the Skip Ahead Ring, it will still be interesting to track the work through these initial builds.

As I stated previously, I expect new 20H1 builds to follow Windows 10 (19H1) builds in order to make sure the fixes in 19H1 builds make it into those for 20H1 along the way. The same will happen once Microsoft begins releasing builds for this fall’s 19H2 feature update after 19H1 is complete.

So earlier this week, Build 18346 was released to Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring and had its long list of bug fixes and other tweaks for stability.

Yesterday, a new 20H1 Skip Ahead Build, 18845, was released to Insiders to keep all the fixes in sync as we continue these two development cycles. According to the release notes for this new build, not only are the fixes in place to mirror the earlier Fast Ring build for 19H1, but they have also added the new Emoji 12.0 update to the release.

There are about 15 fixes items listed and still about eight know issues. As 19H1 gets closer to release, these two lists should get smaller as bugs are fixed and know issues are addressed.

The only other thing to share about this new Skip Ahead build is the latest Reserved Storage tracking data that I have been collecting since the feature was made available last December. Last week I added the second 20H1 Skip Ahead build to the list and this week’s Skip Ahead build makes for a total of five data points for Skip Ahead releases.

Note: The initial two data points are for Skip Ahead builds released under 19H1, basically mirror builds of Fast Ring releases at the same time, and the last three are for the 20H1 Skip Ahead builds.

Windows 10 (20H1) Skip Ahead Ring

• Lenovo X1 Yoga
  • Build 18329 – 7.34GB (Skip Ahead – 19H1)
  • Build 18334 – 7.43GB (Skip Ahead – 19H1)
  • Build 18836 – 7.15GB (Skip Ahead – 20H1)
  • Build 18841 – 7.50GB (Skip Ahead – 20H1)
  • Build 18845 – 7.41GB (Skip Ahead – 20H1)

Windows 10 (20H1) Skip Ahead Build 18845 Screenshot Gallery