I want to install Windows 10 for the first time on my PC which is currently running Win 7 Ultimate with MSDN license. I will use "MDL-provided activation" , so the retail price will not be an issue here. I have installed my current copy of Win7 five years ago and used it until this month without much pain, so I have not looked elsewhere. I am out of the loop so forgive me if my questions seem trivial. I just want to make sure that I pick what I need and I have after the Win10 install at least another five years of problem free Windows mileage. I consider myself a lazy power user who if necessary can find the time and energy to dig deep in the system (editing registry and scripts) but wants to avoid such things if possible and keep everything vanilla and problem free as long as possible. The less hacks and headache the better. In my free time i like to: -Play video games -Hobby level software development (Visual Studio) -Playing with virtualization (VMware Hypervisor on WMware Workstation ad the like) server and networking The chosen edition should: -Easy fool proof and robust activation -As little as possible chance that the activation gets patched out. -Contain as little as possible bloatware -Support the things I want to use it for (above) -I would prefer to have the minimum level of telemetry collection, but it is not a top priority, I dont want to hack it out of the system if that breaks future updates. -Allow my to upgrade my current system (Intel Ivy Bridge at present) at a later time So the questions are : -which edition should I get? -and where to download from the original unchanged ISO files? -Which activator to use? Thanks in advance! J.
- Edition is totally up to you - When you want official HWID you can try to upgrade to 10 Pro. - Either HWID or KMS_VL_ALL v25 - Official ISO's available here: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...3-ltsb-2016-2015-server-2016-techbench.77028/
Two possible ways to go with Windows 10. The 'rolling' releases with the next one coming october (1809) or the Enterprise LTSB version with 5+5 years support. To have some control over Telemetry and Windows Update, the best options would be Enterprise or Education editions using their GPO options. Least bloat and full control via GPO is offered by Enterprise LTSB, but it's not the latest Windows version, although the next LTSC release is scheduled with 1809 (october).
There was an official doc by MSFT stating that 2018 LTSC would be released together with the consumer/business 1809 release. @abbodi1406 first reported this here: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/windows-10-hotfix-repository.57050/page-263#post-1408156 and https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/windows-10-hotfix-repository.57050/page-263#post-1408161 But since then, MSFT has changed the website, @abbodi1406 linked to.
LTSB 2016 iirc wasn't officially scheduled but released as a Bug-.Fix-Update to address issues with the '15 release. Being released with Server 16 was coincidence.
date of the docs are Feb 1, 2018 lets wait and see yes i agree to that, but its same base, ltsb was the extraction of server 2016
I have also seen some posts about MSFT releasing 2018 LTSC together with the release of server 2019, but never saw any official doc of it (iirc). But it can go like with pro-work, it finally got released 6 months to late
If it would be mandatory LTSB and Server sharing the same base, LTSB 2015 wouldn't exist. And this LTSB was planned to be the only one till 2018.
Thanks for the answers so far! Here a couple more questions to dig further: Win 10 Education and Windows 10 Enterprise seem to be very closely matched with near feature parity and same kind of licensing. -Does Win 10 Education have any disadvantage compared to the other editions? -How about bloatware and Win 10 Education? -Does volume licensing have any disadvantage compared to retail licensing from the "free activation" perspective? (ease and robustness of activation) -Can I switch between editions if one is not a good for me?
Regarding bloat aka MS Store & Apps there is no difference between the editions. Only exclusion is LTSB (no store no apps). There's no disadvantage with editions higher than Pro only features that get activated you might not use (they on the other side also do not hurt performance). Since version 1803 you can easily switch through the editions (forth and back) by changing the key. Nothing beats permanent activation, still Volume Licensing does work, if exclusions are properly configured in Antivirus.
Maybe they changed the acronym because they feared that LTSB had too many letters in common with LTGB (Lesbian Transgender Gay Bisexual) ? Or am I being too paranoid??
Ok, I thought about that because somebody told me about the similarity of both acronyms when I was recommending him this version of Windows. It seemed a bit odd to me, but he ended up referring to this windows version as the "rainbow edition"... Go figure!