Here’s the scoop. Some vendors offer an upgrade option as part of the purchase, but many PCs sold in the retail channel are preloaded with Home edition. This could also be the case if you took advantage of the free Windows 10 upgrade offer on a PC running a Home edition of Windows 7 or Windows 8.

In either case, the upgrade takes just a few minutes. You’ll see a succession of progress screens and your system will restart. After the upgrade completes, you should see a Success notification. Check the Activation screen again to confirm that you’re now running Windows 10 Pro. After you’ve successfully performed a Home-to-Pro upgrade, you can file that product key away. Your upgrade is now a digital license, attached to your unique hardware.

If you perform a reinstallation of Windows, Microsoft’s activation servers will recognize the hardware and activate Windows 10 automatically. I have tested this scenario multiple times on hardware that originally shipped with Windows Home and was upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. After the upgrade was complete, I used a bootable USB flash drive containing Windows 10 setup files to reinstall a clean copy of Windows 10 Pro, skipping the option to enter a product key as part of setup, as shown below.

When prompted, be sure to choose Windows 10 Pro as the edition to install. The system was properly activated, because Microsoft’s servers recognized the hardware and used the digital license. Looking for technical information about Windows 10 releases, new features, known issues, troubleshooting, and tech support? Start here. The one gotcha in this series of scenarios comes when you have a system that includes digital licenses for both Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro.

In that scenario, you can inadvertently restore Windows 10 Home. This happened recently when I used a recovery image to reinstall Windows 10 on a Surface Pro PC that had originally shipped with Windows 10 Home and had been upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.

Not surprisingly, using the recovery image gave me an installation of Windows 10 Home. If that happens to you, don’t bother searching for the product key you used to upgrade. Instead, use Microsoft’s generic product key to force the upgrade.

Next, enter the default Windows 10 Pro product key:. Follow the prompts to upgrade from Home to Pro. Because your hardware already has a digital license for the Pro edition, it will activate automatically. That generic product key isn’t magical, of course.

If your hardware doesn’t already have a Pro license, you’ll get an activation error and you’ll need to supply a proper product key or pay for an upgrade. This article has been completely rewritten to incorporate developments in recent feature updates to Windows You’ve got a new PC running Windows 10 Home.

This is a great tool for simple and powerful encryption, and convenient since it’s integrated into the operating system. However, Windows 10 Home users have other choices for disk encryption.

Check out how to protect your data using VeraCrypt for a full guide on a great free tool. Hyper-V is a virtual machine VM manager that allows you to run virtual operating systems on your computer. These are great for test-driving other OSes or installing software in a safe environment without risking your actual system. Newer versions of Windows 10 also include a handy related tool called Windows Sandbox. You can use the Windows Sandbox to open a clean copy of Windows 10 that resets when you close it.

Compared to a traditional VM, this doesn’t take as much time to set up and is easier to maintain. However, like both of the above functions, Windows 10 Home users have free alternatives.

See our full user guide to VirtualBox for everything you need to get started. For some time, Windows 10 Home users didn’t have any way to put off Windows Updates, as they were all automatic. Now, Windows 10 allows Home users to pause updates for up to 35 days. This prevents all Windows updates from installing during the period you select.

However, once that date hits, you must install current updates before pausing again. Windows 10 Pro goes a step further and lets you defer both feature updates and security updates for a set number of days. Feature updates are the major revisions to Windows 10 that launch approximately twice per year and add new features.

Quality updates are Windows 10 patches that fix bugs and security issues. If you feel strongly about controlling updates, you may wish to use Windows 10 Pro to gain more control. Some Pro features clearly aimed at businesses can still have appeal for home users, but not all of them.

This is for ancient websites that don’t work in modern browsers, which are usually internal business sites. Another tool that might find more use with normal users is Assigned Access, a Pro-only feature that lets you lock down an account on the machine to using a single app. It’s designed for kiosks or other restricted environments, but it could be a great way to kid-proof your computer. Letting your child play a game while knowing they can’t access the web is a nice feature.

Windows 10 Pro is also required for other business features, like joining your computer to a domain and Active Directory support. These are critical for corporate environments, but pretty much useless for normal users. While the features above might tempt you, let’s conclude with some reasons why the Windows 10 Pro upgrade isn’t worth the cost for most people. Windows 10 Home doesn’t inhibit your daily usage or take any major features away; chances are that it includes all the functionality you want.

Cortana’s voice assistance, the revamped Start Menu, native virtual desktops, and the Edge browser are all fully available in Windows 10 Home. Some people ask specifically about Windows 10 Home vs. Pro for gaming. While some of the Pro features could come in handy for gaming systems, there’s no particular advantage to using Windows 10 Pro for gaming.

You’ll do fine with whatever edition you chose. In the end, the features above either have a free alternative or are unnecessary for everyday use. Why pay for what you aren’t going to use? A final, but important facet of the Windows 10 Home vs.

 
 

 

Windows 10 pro $99 free –

 

While Windows 10 is available in many editions, most of them are designed for specific purposes and aren’t available to the general public. As a result, you might be confused about Windows editions that aren’t sitting out on store shelves, like Windows 10 Enterprise. Let’s take a look at Windows 10 Enterprise vs.

Windows 10 Pro, including their intended uses, cost, and included features. Before we continue, you should know that if you’re wondering what version of Windows 10 is right for you, you don’t need to worry about Windows 10 Enterprise. Enterprise editions of Windows are intended for corporate use, and thus aren’t something you would purchase on your own. We’ve looked at the differences between Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro , which are the only two versions you need to consider for your own PC.

First, let’s look at the fundamentals of Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise to see how they differ. Windows 10 Pro is the next version of Windows above the base Home version.

While Windows 10 Home includes all the standout features of Windows 10, like gaming tools, Microsoft Store apps, phone linking features, and more, Windows 10 Pro builds on this. You also need at least Windows 10 Pro to connect a PC to a domain , which is a common way to manage machines in a business setting. The average home user doesn’t really need anything in Windows 10 Pro, but enthusiast users may prefer it to have access to all the geeky functions. In contrast, Windows 10 Enterprise is an edition of Windows that includes even more corporate-focused features than Windows 10 Pro.

For instance, you’ll find tools like Credential Protection, which are designed to prevent unauthorized uses of single-sign on functions. It also includes advanced security functionality, designed to work across a network of many business computers.

These features wouldn’t be necessary for a small business with just a few computers. Notably, unlike Windows 7, there is no “Windows 10 Ultimate” edition. Windows 7 Ultimate was essentially Windows 7 Enterprise repackaged for home use, but Microsoft hasn’t offered something like this for Windows 8 or Windows Next, let’s take a brief look at a few of the main features in Windows 10 Enterprise so you know what it offers.

Windows 10 regularly receives updates to add new features; while this is great for home users, it can cause major problems in business settings. Computers that run mission-critical tools like factory controls or ATMs don’t need these fancy featuresthey prioritize stability. Windows 10 Enterprise computers can select the Long-Term Servicing Branch, which doesn’t receive feature updates to Windows It also strips out unnecessary software like the Microsoft Store and Cortana.

AppLocker is a security feature that’s not available in Windows 10 Pro. It allows you to create a whitelist of apps that are allowed to run on the system. Anything that isn’t explicitly allowed through AppLocker won’t run on the computer, making it a great tool for environments that deal with highly sensitive information.

If this sounds interesting, we’ve shown how to lock down Windows user accounts using other methods. Windows 10 Enterprise includes a few virtualization features designed for companies that that have many computers connected to a server.

App-V, or Microsoft Application Virtualization, lets companies run apps in a virtual environment and then serve those virtual apps to client computers. This allows the company to securely run an app on the server and control who has access to it on their work computers, instead of having hundreds of copies of an app floating around on various machines. Similarly, UE-V, or User Environment Virtualization, lets employees save their system settings to a virtual file that syncs to other business computers when they sign in.

This is useful for companies where people often swap desks or otherwise don’t use the same computer all the time. Most of the other tools in Windows 10 Enterprise aren’t particularly exciting to read about.

They include networking tools to make it easier for businesses with multiple locations to access data across them, under-the-hood features to increase security so that only trusted system processes can access sensitive data, and similar. See Microsoft’s comparison of Windows editions for business if you’re interested. Windows 10 Pro is available pre-installed on more powerful computers, which are often intended for business use.

Then follow the link to the Microsoft Store to upgrade, if you wish. Windows 10 Enterprise’s pricing isn’t so straightforward. You must buy through Microsoft’s Volume Licensing center, which typically involves using a Microsoft Partner that deals with purchasing Windows for business use.

Windows 10 Enterprise is available both on per-user and per-device setups, depending on the type of company. This is an advanced security solution that uses behavioral sensors in Windows 10, cloud tools, and other functions to help business fight against malware. See the Windows 10 Licensing and how to purchase through Volume Licensing pages for more details. Windows 10 Pro is sufficient for small businesses that only have a few computers, don’t rely heavily on servers, and don’t need advanced functions of Windows.

Its pricing is straightforward and still allows you to manage them in a business setting using tools like Group Policy. If you have hundreds or thousands of computers in your company, have a dedicated IT team with specific infrastructure, and have specific computer needs that Windows 10 Pro can’t handle, then Windows 10 Enterprise is for you. Only large companies that have complex infrastructures can take advantage of most Enterprise features.

Meanwhile, these aren’t the only Windows 10 versions available. Did you know that there are others, including Education? Windows 10 Editions for Home Users Before we continue, you should know that if you’re wondering what version of Windows 10 is right for you, you don’t need to worry about Windows 10 Enterprise.