Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Windows 10 Home vs Pro: Do You Need to Upgrade?

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.

This is an excellent way to avoid time-consuming installations and OS configurations whenever a new PC comes to your organization. Microsoft Store for Business is similar to the “regular” Microsoft Store, but it comes with the perks business users will find helpful. For example, you can purchase apps and manage the purchases and subscriptions for all users within the company. One of the most prominent Windows 10 Pro features includes Management and Deployment. It is a built-in characteristic that promotes employee productivity, saves you time, money, and overall hassle. Most home computer users will not require Windows 10 Pro such as word processing, web search, gaming, and third-party applications.

Windows 10 Pro can support more CPUs, more RAM

These are great for test-driving other OSes or installing software in a safe environment without risking your actual system. If you have Windows 10 Home, you can easily replicate this feature using alternative remote access software. Tools like TeamViewer are free for personal use and work on all editions of Windows. Now, there is the possibility that future versions of Windows may follow this same path, meaning Microsoft may never go fully free with its OS. More advanced editions include additional features and cost more. For the majority of users, Windows 10 Home edition will suffice.

cost difference between windows 10 home and pro

However, once that date hits, you must install current updates before pausing again. However, like both of the above functions, Windows 10 Home users have free alternatives. Hyper-V is a fine tool, but for the casual VM user, VirtualBox will do the trick just fine. See our full user guide to VirtualBox for everything you need to get started. Those who bought their PC new with Windows 10 probably have the Home edition.

Microsoft Update for Business

Don’t forget that you can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro at anytime using the Microsoft Store. Some Pro features clearly aimed at businesses can still have appeal for home users, but not all of them. However, if you require the additional features offered by Windows 10 Pro, then you will need to purchase the more expensive version. As of this writing, a quick check online puts Pro at a 60% premium over the Home edition, if purchasing the operating system directly. When buying a new computer, the price difference is often significantly less, plus it’ll come pre-installed.

While this is great from an admin perspective and a good way to set a co-worker's wallpaper to something fun remotely, it’s not very useful in a home environment. Like most new versions of Windows released, users were hesitant to adopt the new technology on release, but most of the consumer fears around Windows 10 were put to rest after years of its existence. Group policy is the business-focused feature that allows administrators to limit what users can do.

PC Gamer Newsletter

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. 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. 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.

Still, the Windows Pro users still have a slight advantage here. Namely, they can use Microsoft Edge with an additional security layer – Windows Sandbox. It allows you to launch a self-contained virtual environment and surf the web securely. Although it doesn’t provide anonymity and saves your history, it all vanishes when you close Sandbox.

That means if someone steals your device, regardless of what permissions you set on your files, the disk can be removed and read by anyone. BitLocker is designed to provide complete protection against physical attacks. Stolen or lost notebooks often leave corporate data vulnerable to theft. Windows 10 Home is a personal computer operating system released by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released on July 29, 2015, and is the successor to Windows 8.1.

cost difference between windows 10 home and pro

This is where encryption comes in---it scrambles all the files on your computer and makes them unreadable to anyone without the key. The remote desktop client is present in all editions of Windows. That means you can connect from a Windows Home machine to another Windows machine that supports the Remote Desktop Protocol service.

Windows 10 Home Is Enough for Most

If you use your PC strictly for gaming, there is no benefit to stepping up to Pro. The additional functionality of the Pro version is heavily focused on business and security, even for power users. Windows Update for Business allows an admin to control when a system is updated and defer updates that may cause incompatibilities with legacy software or impact the business in some other way.

For instance, it doesn’t support the new Windows Sandboxing security feature that lets you run malicious apps inside a virtualized Windows installation to maintain safety. Windows 10 Home is the base layer that includes all the main functions you need in a computer operating system. Windows 10 Pro adds another layer with additional security and features that support businesses of all types. WIP is built into Windows 10 and it offers a seamless user experience.

However, with the extra features activated on Windows 10 Pro, fewer resources are being used by Windows 10 Home which technically makes it a faster and lighter-weight operating system. Windows 10 Home and Pro updates are regularly released and free to Windows 10 users. Windows 10 Pro is not the same as Window 10 Enterprise, even though 10 Pro has advanced business features. The bottom line is Windows 10 Pro offers more than its Windows Home counterpart, which is why it's more expensive. Through the Microsoft Store, a one-time upgrade to Windows 10 Pro will cost $99. You can pay with a credit or debit card linked to your Microsoft Account.

cost difference between windows 10 home and pro

For a new system, Windows 10 Home costs $139, while Windows 10 Pro is $199. If you want to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro, you'll need to pay $99. One of these is Enterprise Mode for Internet Explorer, which lets you emulate IE 8 inside of IE 11. This is for ancient websites that don't work in modern browsers, which are usually internal business sites.

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