Microsoft Reveals Seven Editions Of Windows 10

[jimmysmitty]

Home
Pro
Enterprise
Mobile Enterprise
Education
IoT core
Phone

For 90% of people reading this, Home is what you want.
Pro get another 4.7%
0.3% other.

My opinion from knowing the user base here.

The 'Phone' part is not included in that 100%

Phone is not included, although you are missing about 5% there, however I think Windows 10 could change that.

Everyone that I know who has a Windows phone like it a lot. They hate the lack of applications though which can easily change with Visual Basic 2015.

I've always wanted an "enthusiast/gamer" edition of windows that would strip out all the BS background things to make the system perform faster, "like a console."

For literally like 20 years I've wanted this.

With the amount of processing power we have these days it wont make a massive amount of difference. What will is what DX12 is doing and allowing the games better access to the hardware and cutting out unnecessary CPU time.

What version should us gamers get? Windows 10 Home or Pro?

Home is fine for most everyone. I will do Pro as I always have and tend to use the features like Group Policy (for testing mainly) and Hyper-V (again testing).

 

[USAFRet]

Phone is not included, although you are missing about 5% there, however I think Windows 10 could change that.

OOPs...yes, 5% missing.

 

[marck1001]

What version should us gamers get? Windows 10 Home or Pro?

Gamers should get the Home version. If you think this through, Pro and Enterprise add tons of features you won't be able to use at home (or make no sense to use) and thus have more useless code and will naturally consume more resources. For gaming, you should get the cleanest installation as possible, have up to date GPU drivers and leave DX12 do the rest. Disable useless services if you're paranoid and then you will have your machine as close as possible to a console.

 

[James Mason]

I've always wanted an "enthusiast/gamer" edition of windows that would strip out all the BS background things to make the system perform faster, "like a console."

For literally like 20 years I've wanted this.

With the amount of processing power we have these days it wont make a massive amount of difference. What will is what DX12 is doing and allowing the games better access to the hardware and cutting out unnecessary CPU time.

Well, it's not really processing power I'm after, it's less things crashing in the background. Like f-ing active desktop always ruins everything. I want something that has less stuff going on that can crash and fail, Or knows how to like maybe, turn off anti-virus and skype and when a full screen application starts up.

 

[JediWombat]

So there's no version that just has everything? You either get good security, or good cloud support. I'm sure there are people that just want everything available (i.e. Ultimate).

 

[USAFRet]

So there's no version that just has everything? You either get good security, or good cloud support. I'm sure there are people that just want everything available (i.e. Ultimate).

And with Win 7, Ultimate is absolutely useless for 99% of the people who 'bought' it. But hey....good marketing name.

 

[James Mason]

I also would be happier if they made just one version of windows that would include everything. You can then charge different prices based on whether people use it to make money or not, like what a lot of utility software does.

 

[USAFRet]

I also would be happier if they made just one version of windows that would include everything. You can then charge different prices based on whether people use it to make money or not, like what a lot of utility software does.

For an Enterprise level user, I would not any 'home' type features.
For a home user, I would not want any Enterprise level features sucking up processes in the background.

But that is basically what this is. One core OS, with different features available, depending on your price level.

 

[okcnaline]

Seriously?!!! 4 SKUs has been enough. And can't they make a enthusiast's edition?

Wait, you're complaining about too many versions, and then you ask for an "enthusiant's edition"? So, do you want more versions or not??

People complained enough about Windows Ultimate that I'm pretty sure there won't be an "enthusiast edition."

I'm complaining about how they're making so much junk versions when you only need so much.
Here's all you need:
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 Modable version
Windows 10 Pro (VLK, KMS)

That's it. Everything to make all happy. Win10 Pro may as well has all necessary functions for AD DS, BitLock, other stuff. Modable should be a very unlocked version of Win10 which allows dealing with Aero effects, which a lot of us desperately want, along with turning stuff we want on and off. And Home should be that standard version of Windows with what we need.

 

[jonathan1683]

I hate this flat look, I wish windows had built in support to change the shell. I want to upgrade from 7, but I hate the tablet look.

 

[USAFRet]

Every single MS OS change that had a significant visual change...people bitched about.

Win95? What the hell is this?
XP? Fischer Price toy look. This SUX!
8 OMG !!
Fixed in 8.1? Still don't like it!! 8!! whargbargale!!!!
Win 10? I want to go back to XP in Classic mode. Make it look like Win 2K !!!

Meanwhile, the rest of us spend about 15 minutes looking around, and get used to it.
Or don't upgrade at all, until it becomes 4 generations too old. I'm looking at you, XP wannabe's.

Don't like it? Don't upgrade.

 

[bluestar2k11]

"Both Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise also have Windows Update for Business. This gives the user control of scheduling updates,"

Please tell me this doesn't mean that standard versions of windows will be forced to update when the update is released by 10pm that day whether you like it or not, like the preview does?? (which I assume the preview does for feedback purposes, they've gotten a fair bit from me with half the updates breaking something.)

I would assume like previous windows you update when you wish too in retail 10, if at all, and on your time, unless you tell it to auto-update.

 

[okcnaline]

Every single MS OS change that had a significant visual change...people bitched about.

Win95? What the hell is this?
XP? Fischer Price toy look. This SUX!
8 OMG !!
Fixed in 8.1? Still don't like it!! 8!! whargbargale!!!!
Win 10? I want to go back to XP in Classic mode. Make it look like Win 2K !!!

Meanwhile, the rest of us spend about 15 minutes looking around, and get used to it.
Or don't upgrade at all, until it becomes 4 generations too old. I'm looking at you, XP wannabe's.

Don't like it? Don't upgrade.

Um... The only time I absolutely screamed at Microsoft was Windows 10 Build 10014. WTF?!!!!!!! EVEN A BIT OF GLASS IS GREAT, BUT YOU ABSOLUTELY BUTCHERED IT AND KILLED OFF GLASS!!!!!!! AND MADE EEVVVEEEEERRRRRRYYYYYTHING SO FLAT THERE'S NO THICKNESS OF PAPER AT ALL!!!!!!!! Yes, I'm pissed about this. A lot.

I enjoy Windows 8, the Metro apps are nice. But then you got Windows 10 which has a metric <mod edit> ton of junked features which aren't half useful, like that ridiculous Cortana and Start Menu. It looks ugly, and is too flat (with the exception of the glass), and the Cortana is USELESS at least for me. Why? I have a Droid Mini, which does what Cortana does (except more, does it even when is off... etc.) so it's wasted. And lemme <mod edit> about the UI. The new start menu has too much circles, roughly no squares, and the minimize, maximize, and close button is absolute <mod edit>, considering that you don't know which proximized

What I think is a perfect OS for everyone is an UI with the same amount of Aero as Windows 7, but with Metro apps in Windows mode, and much less junk induced, like a new Settings. Oh, did I mention stability? And more 3D taskbars? And not CGA compatible (3 color trash can... *****, please. Inserts Yao Ming face here, if you know what I mean.).

Which is why I have Windows 7 right now.

 

[SirTrollsALot]

Says things under enterprise will be free update. 10 comes with DX12?

 

[jonathan1683]

Every single MS OS change that had a significant visual change...people bitched about.

Win95? What the hell is this?
XP? Fischer Price toy look. This SUX!
8 OMG !!
Fixed in 8.1? Still don't like it!! 8!! whargbargale!!!!
Win 10? I want to go back to XP in Classic mode. Make it look like Win 2K !!!

Meanwhile, the rest of us spend about 15 minutes looking around, and get used to it.
Or don't upgrade at all, until it becomes 4 generations too old. I'm looking at you, XP wannabe's.

Don't like it? Don't upgrade.

Chill out I know my options and that's why I am still on 7, which is the best looking OS imo, XP is ugly too. It's no surprise to see why Microsoft is struggling with the new releases. Make it appealing any people will buy it.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

Is it me or am I the only one struggling to find the names of these 7 different versions of Windows 10 in this article?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Every single MS OS change that had a significant visual change...people bitched about.

Win95? What the hell is this?
XP? Fischer Price toy look. This SUX!
8 OMG !!
Fixed in 8.1? Still don't like it!! 8!! whargbargale!!!!
Win 10? I want to go back to XP in Classic mode. Make it look like Win 2K !!!

Meanwhile, the rest of us spend about 15 minutes looking around, and get used to it.
Or don't upgrade at all, until it becomes 4 generations too old. I'm looking at you, XP wannabe's.

Don't like it? Don't upgrade.

Well back then they didn't know any better. Now, users are a bit more cynical. Win95 we were told was going to make our lives so much better. Trade Mags, dependent in all the advertising dollars, were hesitant to call MS out. PC Mag in the annual PC Roundup issue received submissions from numerous vendors with multiple submissions.... some on W4WGs and some in Win95..... odd choice there For whatever reason..... they decided to separate the performance charts for E4WGs and Win95 by 100 pages..... odd decision don't ya think ?

Well, a little bit.... actually a lot of, page flipping made the reasons obvious. The vendors submitted both versions cause everyone knew the consumer anted to see the new "big thing" - Win95 machines. But they also didn't want to punish themselves with the 40% lower performance scores on average the the Win95 machines were exhibiting.

InfoWorld, a mag geared more towards business computing, reported that corporate America spent between $2500 - $4500 per seat upgrading machines from W4WGs to Win95. The hardware costs were minimal.... most just added RAM, but the soft costs in downtime, training, IT costs were killers.

Let's not forget there's a whole industry that lives off supporting users, especially business users.....training, support, magazine sales, web site hits, etc. If you are going to make Windows 10 just technical improvements, with the same look and feel, that industry has no impetus to push the "new thing".

On the performance front, since Win 3.0, I have made a point when replacing a box with a new one, to install the new OS on the old hardware and bench it. In only two instances was the new OS faster than the old one on same hardware.

Windows 3 => W4WGs
W4WGs => NT4

I rec'd a Toshiba laptop at the time, which on bootup, gave you the opportunity to choose Win95 or W4WGs .... using CAD and typical desktop benchmarks of the day.... Win95 was 36 - 42% slower.

Since I'm being nostalgic.... cleaned the office this evening and threw out 6 drawers (those little stacking plastic things) full of 3.5" and 4 more drawers of 5.25" floppies. Filled 3 of those office waste baskets. Was hoping to find the disk w/the INF file for the 21" CRT (Eizo - Nanao FX-E8) we still use. Gotta be 20 years old but Win 7 won't go more than 1280×1024 on the 1600 x 1200 (85Hz) monitor. Worked fine under WinXP. Certainly got out use outta it....costs us about $50 a year, which is more than I have gotten outta some LCDs

 

[nottheking]

At first I was thinking that 7 was a lot of editions, though looking over it, at least the structuring makes more sense this time around. Perhaps Microsoft has learned their lesson across the prior three releases of NT 6.x, and knows that they shouldn't worry about nickel-and-dime monetization schemes, but simply rest knowing "if they build it, the users will come."

Still, it leaves some of the specifics up in the air: while I, like others, would certainly HOPE that getting all the goodies will be a part of getting the "home" version, this hasn't been confirmed... And likely won't be.

While Win8 did improve a good deal over Vista/7's hilarios 6-tiered scheme, it still left some splits that were unfortunate to the enthusiast crowd. In spite of not using Windows for a "business machine," an enthusiast would still find themselves likely needing Windows 8 Pro instead of standard Windows 8, in order to get all the most "power" out of the system, such as if they wanted more than 128 GB of RAM, (increasingly plausible) or use of BitLocker. Granted, while having to go with the more-expensive "pro" version may not be perfect, at least it's better than being required to shell out for an arbitrarily-expensive "Ultimate" edition. However, if Windows 10 Home retains a 128 GB memory limit, that will be a particular sticking point for the enthusiast crowd when 64GB DDR4 DIMMs become the norm for high-end machines, which is projected to happen during Windows 10's lifespan.

The only other curious part is how Mobile Enterprise is genuinely a thing of its own; it'd make more sense if, given its target, it was considered simply a permutation of Windows 10 Enterprise. Similarly, Education really seems like it'd be considered another permutation of Enterprise... And IoT Core perhaps a permutation of Mobile, given that mobile phones, in just about every engineering sense, can be considered embedded devices as well.

 

[ruszip1]

7 versions and no windows media center, sad, just sad.

 

[ahnilated]

"Honestly 7 was a great OS but 8.1 is better and 10 will be even better. On the back end and especially security wise, 10 looks to make 7 look as insecure as XP almost.

For example, the new browser Edge (only on 10) will run in a sandbox, like all Windows Store apps do, and will also drop any support for ActiveX in favor of HTML5 and JS.

But hey, keep 7. There honestly is nothing wrong with it. "

My question is why do people keep going on about how the new versions will be more secure? Windows has always sucked for security from day 1. Each version of Windows is released with many thousands of "known" bugs. Then there is the unknown ones that have been in Windows for many years and as long as they "feel" no one is going to abuse them they won't bother fixing them because that would cost them money.

Talking about JS or Java Script about being secure is like saying a screen on my house makes my house secure.

I wouldn't purchase Windows 8-10 just because I don't want to have an "online" presence forced upon me to use a OS. Granted there are ways around setting them up upon installing the OS but that isn't the point. I should NOT have to bypass something upon install just to use the OS and not be forced to setup Microsoft's crap online stuff. I don't use that stuff in Linux either and will strip that crap out but at least in Linux I can remove it.

 

[ern88]

Seriously?!!! 4 SKUs has been enough. And can't they make a enthusiast's edition?

Use Steam OS if you wat a pure gaming OS. It's Linux base. Case closed...Next!!!!

 

[jimmysmitty]

"Honestly 7 was a great OS but 8.1 is better and 10 will be even better. On the back end and especially security wise, 10 looks to make 7 look as insecure as XP almost.

For example, the new browser Edge (only on 10) will run in a sandbox, like all Windows Store apps do, and will also drop any support for ActiveX in favor of HTML5 and JS.

But hey, keep 7. There honestly is nothing wrong with it. "

My question is why do people keep going on about how the new versions will be more secure? Windows has always sucked for security from day 1. Each version of Windows is released with many thousands of "known" bugs. Then there is the unknown ones that have been in Windows for many years and as long as they "feel" no one is going to abuse them they won't bother fixing them because that would cost them money.

Talking about JS or Java Script about being secure is like saying a screen on my house makes my house secure.

I wouldn't purchase Windows 8-10 just because I don't want to have an "online" presence forced upon me to use a OS. Granted there are ways around setting them up upon installing the OS but that isn't the point. I should NOT have to bypass something upon install just to use the OS and not be forced to setup Microsoft's crap online stuff. I don't use that stuff in Linux either and will strip that crap out but at least in Linux I can remove it.

While JS is not as secure as others, it is vastly more secure than ActiveX and a lot of other old features IE still supports.

As for the OS security, it actually is more secure. Each version takes time to find the holes. In reality, no OS is ever secure the second you hook it up to the internet. Windows, OSX or even Unix/Linux all have possible holes and exploits and no matter how much work and coding you do they will never be 100% secure unless you keep them offline.

And you don't have to always be online for Windows 8/8.1. You can do a local only account like I did for my personal PC and like I do for my current work. Sure you have to bypass it but in the end, how bad is that?

Seriously?!!! 4 SKUs has been enough. And can't they make a enthusiast's edition?

Use Steam OS if you wat a pure gaming OS. It's Linux base. Case closed...Next!!!!

Still lacking game support. I am all for Steam and their products but SteamOS still has a ways to go before it becomes a good alternative to Windows for gaming.

 

[convertedconsolegamer_92]

Bit of a noon here, but don't we need Windows 10 for the next DX12 to be active? Meaning it won't be available to older OS systems?

 

[ahnilated]

Bit of a noon here, but don't we need Windows 10 for the next DX12 to be active? Meaning it won't be available to older OS systems?

That is one of the ways how MS is trying to keep the people upgrading.

 

[Shaken Daily]

So they are once again offering less secure versions of Windows to the majority of home users, unless you pay more for it. Whilst we're all given Xbox bloat instead of the lean Windows most of us gave up waiting for years ago.

Why can't they offer these temporary, market led add-ons just to the people who want them, rather than bolt them on an OS already overloaded with bloat?