Ever since Microsoft announced that existing Windows 7 and 8 customers would receive a free upgrade to Windows 10 for 12 months after it ships, there've been questions about which devices and versions of the OS would be covered under the agreement. Microsoft shared new details of its plans today, though there are still some pieces missing.
First, let's talk about the new SKUs.
Windows 10 Home: This is the consumer version of the operating system that will ship standard on desktops, laptops, and 2-in-1 platforms. Windows 10 Home will include Microsoft's new Edge web browser, its advanced sign-in and facial recognition capabilities, Cortana, the usual slew of Windows applications, and at least some Xbox gaming integration. Microsoft's blog post states that Windows 10 Home customers will have access to "capturing and sharing" gameplay but doesn't name any additional features on the PC side. Xbox One users, however, will be able to stream games from their consoles to any Windows 10 PC on the local network.
Windows 10 Home and Mobile
Windows 10 Mobile: Windows 10 Mobile is the tablet and smartphone version of the operating system. It's closer to the experience that Windows RT was meant to offer, but it ditches the desktop interface and legacy application support that confused users back when the original Surface tablet launched. At the time, end users often expected that any device that offered the familiar Windows desktop could run standard Windows programs.
Windows 10 Mobile will include a touch-optimized version of Office and all the same "Universal" applications as Windows 10 Home. According to Microsoft, some smartphones and tablets will include support for Microsoft Continuum for phones. Continuum is Microsoft's name for its flexible UI implementation. Hook a mouse and keyboard to a supported smartphone, and the phone's UI will change to a UI that's more suited to that hardware. Hook the phone to a monitor, and the OS seamlessly changes its font and icon scaling to fit the larger display.
Windows 10 Pro: Microsoft acknowledged the existence of Windows 10 Pro but didn't say much about the concrete features that differentiate it from the consumer versions of the operating system. Historically, the Professional version of Windows has supported larger RAM loadouts than the Home version, the ability to host Remote Desktop sessions, Bitlocker support, the ability to sideload some Windows Store apps, group policies, and technologies like Hyper-V. We'll have to wait and see which services are supported in Windows 10; the only specific capability called out in Microsoft's blog post was Windows Update for Business. Those are the versions that individuals are going to be most interested in, but they aren't the only SKUs that Microsoft is shipping. The new OS will also be available as Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 10 Education, and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise, which is optimistically designed to meet the needs of businesses that want to deploy Microsoft smartphones in a business setting. By some accounts, this will be the last version of Windows that Microsoft ships, though we advise against taking that too literally. Windows 10 will be a game-changer for Microsoft, which has adopted a new revenue structure to account for it.Straightforward upgrade paths:
There are some nuances to the upgrades that aren't fully explored in the blog post -- for example, do school machines running standard Windows 7 / Windows 8 get an upgrade to regular Windows 10 Home or to Windows 10 Education? For 99% of consumers, however, the process is simple: If you owned Windows 7 Home or Windows 8, you get Windows 10 Home. If you owned Windows 7 or Windows 8 Pro, you get Windows 10 Pro.
Presumably some smartphones and tablets will have the option to upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile, but MS hasn't published exact guidance on that yet, or said if they will offer a choice for certain platforms. Based on what the company has said to date, it seems safe to assume that 2-in-1s will get the desktop version of the operating system, while standalone Windows tablets may only get the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade. For now, this is speculation.
The blog post(Opens in a new window) also confirms that Windows 10 is aiming for a summer release date, but doesn't say more than that.As a Windows 7 Professional owner, I'm interested to see what improvements Windows 10 brings to the table and I'm hoping that the OS includes the Desktop improvements and performance increases that Windows 8 offered without forcing substandard Metro applications and a fundamentally broken user experience down our collective throats. Overall impressions of the operating system to-date have been positive -- barring a major problem, I'm tentatively planning to upgrade when the OS becomes available. That said, some of the proposed DRM lockdowns and Linux lockouts on OEM systems are concerning, even if I'm not a penguinista myself.
There are still some questions to be answered, however, including whether or not existing Windows users will be able to install a clean upgrade copy or if the OS will only install on top of an existing installation. Pricing for new copies at retail has not yet been announced.
