Windows 10 is a series of operating systems developed by Microsoft and released as part of its Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the successor to Windows 8.1, released nearly two years earlier, and was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and broadly released for the general public on July 29, 2015. Windows 10 was made available for download via MSDN and Technet, and as a free upgrade for retail copies of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 users via the Windows Store. Windows 10 receives new builds on an ongoing basis, which are available at no additional cost to users, in addition to additional test builds of Windows 10, which are available to Windows Insiders. Devices in enterprise environments can receive these updates at a slower pace, or use long-term support milestones that only receive critical updates, such as security patches, over their ten-year lifespan of extended support.
