Windows 10 Home vs Pro

Windows 10 Home vs Pro

Most people using Windows 10 will have the choice between Home and Pro editions (although there are Education, Enterprise and Mobile editions too). As the name suggests, many home users will find that the "Home" edition contains everything they expect in an operating system, without some of the professional level features that power users and businesses may require.

In addition to the Home base OS, Professional Editions include the following features:
  • Domain Join
  • Group Policy Management
  • Enterprise Mode Internet Explorer (EMIE)
  • Assigned Access
  • Remote Desktop
  • Client Hyper-V
  • Ability to join Azure Active Directory, with single sign-on to cloud-hosted apps
  • Add user state roaming with Azure Active Directory
  • Windows Store for Business
  • Dynamic Provisioning
  • Enterprise Data Protection
  • BitLocker
  • Trusted Boot
  • Conditional access
  • Windows Update for Business
  • Current Branch for Business
As you can see from the list, most of these features relate to networking in a business environment, plus additional encryption tools. Unless you specifically require any of these features, the Home edition would be the version to use - there is no difference in the day-to-day usage of the operating system. The most likely features that a non-business user may desire are disk encryption and remote desktop server features - however there are 3rd party alternatives to both these "Pro" features.

If you wish, you can pay to upgrade from a Home to Pro installation, without the need to re-install Windows.
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