- Compare Windows 10 Home vs Pro | Microsoft Windows
Whether you choose Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro, you will be getting the same operating system, which Microsoft supports with the same monthly and feature updates. The only difference is the features available in each edition, and the information below will help you understand the differences between the two editions and which one to pick.
This edition includes all the features you need to browse the internet, check emails, stream media, and play games even in 4K. The operating system also comes with robust built-in security, including Windows Security, which protects your device and data against virtually any kind of malware and hacker attacks using the Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Defender Firewall.
Windows Hello is another feature that allows you to sign in to the device using biometric authentications, including fingerprint, facial recognition, or passcode, making your machine more secure. Many devices come with Windows Hello built-in, but you can also get accessories to manually add this security method to your device.
For instance, you can get a keyboard with a built-in fingerprint, a standalone USB fingerprint reader, or a webcam with facial recognition camera built-in. If you have young members in the family, Windows 10 Home connected with a Microsoft account can also offer robust parental controls to set screen time and restrict access to apps and content online.
This edition of Windows 10 also includes a collection of built-in apps that connect with your Microsoft account for a cross-device experience and make you more productive.
Of course, you can always install any app you need from the Microsoft Store or other sources, including your popular apps, such as Netflix, iTunes, Photoshop, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Steam, and more. If you are a gamer, Windows 10 Home includes the latest technologies and capabilities to play any game with the newest version of DirectX and support for 4K.
Usually, devices like Surface laptops and tablets include this feature. If you use the device at home, Windows 10 Home is for you. Device encryption is available on a wide range of Windows devices and helps protect your data by encrypting it. If you turn on device encryption, only authorized individuals will be able to access your device and data. Your Windows device comes with comprehensive, built-in security features, including firewall and internet protections to help safeguard against viruses, malware, and ransomware.
Secure Boot helps prevent malicious software applications and unauthorized operating systems from loading during the system start-up process. If your device is lost or stolen, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go put everything on lockdown, so no one else can access your systems or data.
WIP helps to protect against potential data leakage without otherwise interfering with the employee experience. WIP also helps to protect enterprise apps and data against accidental data leaks on enterprise-owned devices and personal devices that employees bring to work, without requiring changes to your environment or other apps.
Windows Defender Antivirus uses the power of the cloud, wide optics, machine learning, and behavior analysis to protect your devices from emerging, sophisticated threats. Windows 10 comes with automatic updates enabled, which means you get all the latest features at no extra cost. Take notes, navigate, draw, doodle, edit, and create. Improve what you do with a digital pen. Get faster browsing 7 8 and better battery life 8 9 across your devices with Microsoft Edge, the browser built for Windows All you have to do is ask Cortana.
Extend battery life by limiting background activity and push notifications. Free up time and your hands by talking to your computer. Get information and reminders or listen to music and manage your emails and calendar. Built-in security, productivity, and management features save you time, money, and hassle. Windows 10 mobile device management MDM provides an alternative to traditional PC management processes: you can transition to cloud based management at your own pace.
Only Windows 10 Pro support joining or creating a domain, which allows PCs to be added to a corporate network. This means any laptop or PC you want to use at work and access files on servers will almost certainly need to be running Windows 10 Pro. Assigned Access lets a sysadmin restrict a Windows tablet to run only a certain app a very specific benefit which will apply to only a few. A welcome addition in Windows 10 is a fully integrated version of Virtual Desktops.
This feature has been around in past iterations of Windows, but always required additional software to get it going. If you need complex features, such as a network domain or the ability to manage group policies on several computers such as a small office , Windows 10 Pro has these advanced features to make management easy and centralized. If your networking needs are less complicated or you have a single computer, Windows 10 Home should be sufficient for an operating system.
If you're on a budget, the lower price should help. The bottom line is Windows 10 Pro offers more than its Windows Home counterpart, which is why it's more expensive.
There's nothing Windows 10 Home can do that Pro can't. These operating systems are largely the same. The difference is based on whether the license you activate is for Home or Pro.
You may have done this before, either when installing Windows, or setting up a new PC for the first time. During the setup, you reach a point in the process where you enter a character Product ID license key. Based on that key, Windows makes a set of features available in the OS. The features average users need are present in Home.
Pro offers more features, but this refers to the built-in functions of Windows, and many of these functions are tools used only by system administrators. Startup times and app activities are generally faster in S mode, which is a plus. The reason for the speed is that there are no Windows legacy apps to slow things down. Files automatically save in the cloud via OneDrive, which helps avoid bloat on smaller hard drives. Any PC can be compatible with Windows 10 in S mode.
A few PCs currently ship with Windows 10 in S mode. Also, several manufacturers make low-cost notebooks running in S Mode. Windows 10 S mode has numerous limitations, including browser restrictions to Edge and only letting you use Microsoft Store apps. Step 2: Here, you will see a heading for Switch to Windows 10 Home or Switch to Windows 10 Pro, depending on which version can be enabled on your device. Below that, select the option that says Go to the Store.
Choose Get to start running the update, and confirm. There is a chance that this requires Admin access.
Windows 10 Home vs Pro vs S: What's The Difference? | Tech Advisor
This edition of Windows 10 also includes a collection of built-in apps that connect with your Microsoft account for a cross-device experience and make you more productive. Of course, you can always install any app you need from the Microsoft Store or other sources, including your popular apps, such as Netflix, iTunes, Photoshop, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Steam, and more.
If you are a gamer, Windows 10 Home includes the latest technologies and capabilities to play any game with the newest version of DirectX and support for 4K. Usually, devices like Surface laptops and tablets include this feature. If you use the device at home, Windows 10 Home is for you. It does unlock more features, but they are unnecessary for home users. However, if you are an advanced user, you may still benefit from the Pro edition.
Similar to the Home edition, Windows 10 Pro includes built-in security, including the Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Defender Firewall, to protect the device against malware and hackers. Windows Hello is also available to add biometric authentication to login into Windows Connected with a Microsoft account, the Pro edition of Windows 10 offers parental control and a cross-device experience using the built-in apps.
You can also install any app you need from the Microsoft Store or any other source, and you can use the operating system for gaming as it comes with support for DirectX and 4K gameplay. Unlike the Home edition, Windows 10 Pro also includes the ability to connect to a corporate or school network using Active Directory or Azure Active Directory, and there are options to manage devices over the internet. If you need to set up a kiosk device, this edition has a feature to lock the device to use it with a single application.
You can also access the Group Policy Editor to manage advanced system settings. Also, if you need to access apps and files remotely, Windows 10 Pro comes with Remote Desktop to connect remotely within the network or across the internet. Windows 10 Pro comes with BitLocker, which also offers full device encryption to protect your data from unauthorized access, but with extra management tools.
Hyper-V is a hypervisor that allows users to run virtual machines with any version of Windows or Linux alongside Windows And Trusted Boot is another feature included with Windows 10 Pro that works with Secure Boot to protect the boot process from malware. If you need to test untrusted applications without affecting your current installation, you can use Windows Sandbox. Microsoft Defender Application Guard is another security feature with the same idea as Windows Sandbox.
Another difference between Windows 10 Pro and Home is the memory limit. Also, Microsoft offers another variant known as Windows 10 Pro for Workstation, which is technically Windows 10 Pro, but with some extra server-grade features. For instance, the ReFS Resilient File System is the default file system in this edition instead of NTFS, adding fault-tolerance, optimization for large data volumes, and automatic error correction. Microsoft also includes support for non-volatile memory modules NVDIMM-N for persistent memory, which means that writing and reading speeds will always be the fastest possible.
In addition, your files will still be there even after switching the computer off. Windows 10 Pro is limited to two processors and up to 2TB of memory. Windows 10 Pro and vs. Windows 10 Pro for Workstation:. Can I upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro? Yes, you can always install Windows 10 Home, and then if you need the advanced features, you can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. How much does it cost to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro?
Do I need Windows 10 Pro if I only need virtualization? No, you can always use third-party virtualization tools, such as VirtualBox free or Vmware Workstation paid , to use virtual machines. The data is also encrypted in this method, so even if the data gets compromised, it cannot be decoded. BitLocker is a disk encryption program, which protects data by encrypting all the volumes in a drive.
And Windows 10 Pro comes with the latest edition of BitLocker. In case you are unaware, encrypting the drive data makes your data unreadable by unauthorized users. The data can only be decrypted by the user who holds the recovery key. This way you can protect sensitive data of your business on Windows 10 Pro.
You can learn how to use BitLocker from our article on the best Encryption software for Windows. Update for Business We all know that Windows 10 is going to be the last Windows version, with Microsoft planning to update it as a service in the future.
Windows Update for Business will make sure that Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise users are always up to date when it comes to security features. On top of that, using Mobile Device Management MDM that is only available on Windows 10 Pro, the IT admin can keep all the Windows devices under the organization up to date with the latest security patches. The admin can configure and tune all forms of updates including Feature, Quality, Drivers, and Microsoft product updates.
In one simple click, you can connect to multiple computers over the internet or through a local network and configure the computer without having to download any third-party software. You can establish RDP connection and remotely access your files, turn on a server, put a batch of files on download, and do much more.
It lets you set up a kiosk computer with access to certain apps and environments only. The user cannot access anything beyond what is assigned on the PC. For example, this feature can help organizations while hiring employees. You can assign a certain app to the user and one cannot access anything apart from that app.
Simply put, if you run a business then opting for Windows 10 Pro over the Home edition would be a choice. Both Windows 10 Home and Pro come with the same core Windows 10 experience and features.
Windows Hello Windows Hello brings biometric authentication to Windows devices and it certainly brings a wow factor to Windows. Virtual Desktops and Timeline Virtual desktop is finally available on Windows 10 and the good news is that both Windows 10 Pro and Home support it. Along with virtual desktops, Timeline is also available on both the Windows 10 versions. Timeline allows you to access all your browsing history from all devices including Android and iOS smartphones.
Not to mention, Windows 10 has Snap assist too which allows you to runs 4 apps side by side at once. Your Phone App One of the best features of Windows 10 — and it applies to both editions — is support for the Your Phone app.
It allows you to connect your Android device to Windows 10 and then you can manage notifications, receive calls , access photos and do much more. You can, in fact, reply to messages as well which is awesome. Apart from that, if you own a flagship Samsung device then you can even mirror your Android device on Windows How cool is that?
The May update for Windows 10 introduced a new chat-based UI, which shows that Cortana is here to stay. Windows 10 Home and Pro share some business features as well. Both the Windows versions come with support for Microsoft Passport , device encryption, side-loading of business apps, and mobile device management.
Along with that, both versions can be easily upgraded to Windows 10 Education Edition. You can buy both the releases from the links below. Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate, or Windows 8. There are many ways to get Windows 10 for cheap. Click on the link to learn more. Windows 10 Home should work fine if you just care about the new attractive features like Cortana, Timeline, Windows Hello , etc.
Microsoft has also added some security features in the Home edition like Microsoft Passport, device encryption, and more. So, if you want a Windows version for basic or personal usage, you should do fine with Windows 10 Home. However, if you have a small business or you want a secure Windows version for work, then Windows 10 Pro should definitely be your choice. Windows 10 Enterprise , as the name suggests is aimed at large companies.
