Examine Windows client editions and capabilities

  • 10 minutes

It's essential that you select the most suitable edition for your organization before you install Windows. The different editions of Windows address the needs of consumers, from individuals to large enterprises. This unit describes the various features of each edition available for Windows 10 and later.

Windows 10 / Windows 11 Edition Audience Availability
Home Individual home use Everyone
Pro Small and mid-sized businesses, advanced users Everyone
Pro for Workstations Users with advanced performance and storage requirements Everyone
Enterprise Large enterprise organizations Available to Volume LicenseMicrosoft Volume Licensing, Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft Store for Education or Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program
Enterprise LTSC Large enterprise organizations with restrictive change requirements Microsoft Volume Licensing, Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, or Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program
Pro Education Comparable to Pro for school staff, administrators, teachers, and students Available to academic Volume License customers
Education Comparable to Enterprise for school staff, administrators, teachers, and students Available to academic Volume License customers
IoT Core/Enterprise Fixed purpose and appliance devices Available through Windows IoT Distributors

Windows edition details

Home

Home is the consumer-oriented desktop edition of Windows. It offers the familiar Windows experience for PCs, tablets, and the new hybrid laptop/tablets. Features with Home edition include:

  • Microsoft Edge
  • Windows Hello
  • Virtual Desktops
  • Photos, Maps, Mail, Calendar, Music and Video, and other built-in universal Windows apps
  • Device encryption
  • Firewall and virus protection
  • Always On VPN
  • New updates and features received automatically

Pro

Pro edition builds on the features of Windows Home, with many extra features to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. Pro edition is also suitable for advanced consumers looking for features like BitLocker and virtualization.

Some of the features Pro edition provides:

  • Windows Autopilot: Windows Autopilot uses an existing Windows installation to transform or reset the device to a “business-ready” state, applying settings, policies, apps, and edition changes without reimaging.
  • Dynamic Provisioning: Dynamic Provisioning allows an organization's out-of-the-box PC to be configured with minimal effort.
  • Mobile Device Management (MDM) support: Mobile Device Management support allows devices to be managed through an MDM service instead of traditional management solutions.
  • Domain Join: Computers can join the Active Directory domain.
  • Ability to join Microsoft Entra ID: This ability enables users to perform single sign-on across Windows, Microsoft 365, and other cloud-hosted apps and services.
  • Group Policy Management: Domain joined computers support the Group Policy Management feature.
  • BitLocker: BitLocker functions as a complete volume encryption and boot environment protection solution.
  • Windows Information Protection (with MDM management) helps protects apps and data leaks on organization and personally owned devices.
  • Assigned Access: Allows devices to run different applications based on the user.
  • Remote Desktop: This feature enables Remote Desktop connections from compatible Remote Desktop Connection clients.
  • Client Hyper-V: Client Hyper-V allows you to host virtual machines on a client computer with sufficient hardware resources.
  • Microsoft Store for Business: Single store for finding and managing apps in an organization.
  • Windows Update for Business: A cloud-based Windows Update solution can configure distribution rings, maintenance windows, peer-to-peer delivery, and integration with tools like Microsoft Intune.
  • Enterprise Data Protection: This new Windows feature lets organizations control which applications can access sensitive data.
  • Granular user-interface Control: This feature enables administrators to lock the user interface so that users can perform specific tasks only. This feature is useful when deploying Windows as a kiosk.
  • Enterprise State Roaming: Enterprise State Roaming provides users a unified experience across organizational Windows devices.

Pro for Workstations

Pro for Workstations edition offers the same features as the Pro edition. It includes more features intended for workloads that require higher performance and resilience.

  • ReFS (Resilient File System): ReFS provides cloud-grade resiliency for data on fault-tolerant storage spaces and manages large volumes.
  • Persistent memory: Support for non-volatile memory modules (NVDIMM-N). When turning off the workstation, data and files in memory persist.
  • SMB Direct: SMB Direct supports network adapters that have Remote Direct Memory Access capability. SMB Direct offers improved performance when transferring large amounts of data on remote SMB file shares.
  • Expanded Hardware Support: Expanded Hardware Support takes full advantage of high-performance hardware such as server-grade Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processors, with support for up to 4 CPUs and 6 TB of memory.

Enterprise

Enterprise edition builds on the features of the Pro edition, with extra features that meet the needs of large enterprises. Enterprise edition is available to Volume Licensing customers only. They can choose the pace at which they adopt new technology. Enterprise edition also supports a broad range of options for operating system deployment and device and app management.

Some of the features Enterprise edition provides:

  • BranchCache: Allows content from file and web servers on a wide area network (WAN) to be cached on computers at a local branch office.
  • Start menu layout control: This feature enables you to use MDM policies or Group Policies to customize the appearance and content of the start menu.
  • Microsoft Defender Credential Guard: Virtualization-based security isolates secrets, so only privileged users can access them.
  • Microsoft Defender Application Control: Controls what applications run within your environment to help block against malware and untrusted apps.
  • Microsoft Defender Application Guard: Opens untrusted websites in a Hyper-V container to isolate in case the site is malicious.
  • Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V): Enables organizations to deliver Win32 applications to users as virtual applications.
  • Microsoft User Experience Virtualization (UE-V): Capture user-customized Windows and application settings and store them on a centrally managed network.
  • License rights: For virtual desktops and edition step-up from Pro edition using cloud activation.
  • DirectAccess: While this feature is supported, it’s recommended that organizations use “Always On VPN,” which is available in Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

Enterprise LTSC

Enterprise Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) is a special edition of Enterprise that Microsoft won't update with any new features. Enterprise LTSC only gets security updates and other important updates. You can install Enterprise LTSC to devices that run in a known environment that doesn't change. A typical example would be a PC used as part of a medical or industrial system. These environments are typically closed systems designed to a particular specification that traditional updates would affect. The differences between Enterprise LTSC and the standard Enterprise edition include:

  • Doesn't receive feature upgrades
  • No Microsoft Edge browser (can be installed separately)
  • No Microsoft Store client
  • Many built-in universal Windows apps are missing

Microsoft releases an updated version of the LTSC edition approximately every three years. Windows Enterprise LTSC 2021 is the current release and includes the cumulative updates provided up to and including version 21H2.

Windows 11 LTSC isn't yet available. Microsoft recommends that customers with devices best suited for LTSC scenarios continue using Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC.

Note

The Long-Term Servicing Channel edition was previously called the Long Term Servicing Branch (LTSB).

Pro Education and Education

Pro Education and Education offer the same features as Pro and Enterprise editions, respectively, except for the Long-Term Servicing Channel. These editions of Windows have configurations more suitable for school staff, administrators, teachers, and students. Pro Education and Education editions are only available through academic Volume Licensing.

IoT Core/Enterprise

The IoT Edition of Windows is designed for fixed-purpose devices. Examples include automated teller machines, point-of-sale terminals, and industrial and medical devices. Windows 10 IoT Core is a smaller OS designed to run a single app, while Windows 10/11 IoT Enterprise is a full version of Windows Enterprise with specialized features.

IoT and LTSC, while they might sound similar, are intended for different purposes. LTSC is deployed to a computer for a specific process. It's installed by and licensed by the company using it. IoT is embedded on a particular device or appliance by the manufacturer. A consumer might purchase the device, but the manufacturer has already purchased the license.