Generally Available: Azure Sphere OS version 26.09 is now available for evaluation

Azure Sphere OS version 26.09 RC1 is now available for evaluation in the Retail Eval feed. Whilst this release encompasses no customer-facing changes, it represents a major bump in Azure Sphere's underlying Linux kernel version as part of our long-term support and security commitment, as such, this release will operate for an extended evaluation period, until September 2026, enabling additional time for customer evaluation testing. Whilst we've taken every measure to ensure that this update does not impact any of our contractual surfaces, with over six months of extensive integration and regression testing, we strongly encourage customers to evaluate this release with their in-market applications and to raise any issues with the Azure Sphere product group as early on as possible. Following this evaluation period, 26.09 will be promoted and deployed broadly to devices in the Retail feed. The 26.09 RC1 OS Retail Eval release includes a major Linux kernel version bump.