Windows 10 1607 is now CBB and Businesses That Don’t Upgrade Now Will Be Left Behind

On November 29th, 2016 release 1607 of Windows 10 became “Current Branch For Business” (CBB) and 1607 will start being deployed to all 1507 Machines as of January 2017.  Microsoft has a ‘2 version’ rule that states Microsoft will support and make patches for only two releases of Windows 10 + 60 days.  All this means the 60 day countdown to death for Windows 10 starts in January:

• Windows 10 Release RTM 1507 – released July 2015 – dead March 2017
• Windows 10 1511 – released November 2015 – dead TBD but likely fall 2017
• Windows 10 1607 – released July 2016 – dead TDB but likely spring 2018

To clarify a few points:

• In addition to all the common tools you likely already know about Microsoft has new Upgrade Analytics Tool for Business you can run for free directly from Microsoft Azure.
• Microsoft expects to release 2 or 3 new versions every year and no longer releases service packs
• Unless a serious problem is found a release version called Current Branch (CB) will declared Current Branch For Windows (CBB) by Microsoft 4 months after CB release
• Microsoft will update media and published it in January (to Windows Update and WSUS; ConfigMgr gets it from WSUS).  At that point, ConfigMgr should indicate that Windows 10 1607 is CBB
• If DEFER UPGRADES is enabled that makes you CBB which means you will see 1607 deployed in January 2017
• If DEFER UPGRADES is enabled AND you have a GPO set AFTER A FEATURE UPDATE IS RELEASED, DEFER RECEIVING IN FOR THIS MANY DAYS, that number of days starts counting in January 2017

I found THIS MS post on 1607 becoming Current Branch For Business to be most useful and you might too.