Although Microsoft announced its mixed reality headset HoloLens back in 2015 to much fanfare, the hardware has arguably not been a mainstream success. While the company did manage to finalize a 10-year contract worth nearly $22 billion with the U.S. Army last year, subsequent reports indicate that the process didn’t go as smoothly as planned.
The HoloLens project continues to come under more pressure and questioning after Hololens lead Alex Kipman left Microsoft following allegations of misconduct. Although the development of the project has not been smooth in recent months, Microsoft is now preparing to release the next major version of HoloLens 2 OS.
In a blog post updated today, Microsoft said it is ready to test its next HoloLens OS update with Mixed Reality Partners (MRP). Although the blog calls it the “new Fall Insider Flight Preview,” it will likely be called Windows Holographic Version 22H2 when it becomes generally available.
Microsoft usually releases updates to Windows Holographic twice a year, with the first arriving in the April-May timeframe and the other in the October-November timeframe.
As a result, Microsoft has asked MRPs to begin testing their applications and deployments in Dev Channel. They have also been asked to fill out an MRP feedback form which requires the following information and process.
- Please use your application for end-to-end testing of the latest Insider release.
- validate the IT deployments in your environment against your identity, network, security and device management systems to help ensure that OS updates do not disrupt any of your deployment workflows.
- Validate your line-of-business application experience to ensure that your applications continue to function as designed after the update.
