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Windows 10 Home vs. Windows 10 Pro: Which is right for your business

When you’re running a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) or startup there are no such thing as an unimportant decision, especially when it comes to choosing the software that runs your business.

While picking between different CRM packages or MDM solutions can prove tough tasks, the choice of operating system (OS) for your employees’ hardware is often given less attention.  This is a mistake, however, as not all operating systems are created equal.

Take Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, for example: they each offer a similar range of features, while being best-suited to different types of business environments.

To give you a better understanding of Window 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, let’s take a look at both, and what each offers your business.

Windows 10 Home

First up is Windows 10 Home. This should be an operating system that many of your employees are already familiar with, as it’s the OS they’re most likely to already be running at home.

As for whether it’s appropriate for business use, Windows 10 Home is well-suited to smaller organisations that do not have complex IT requirements.

Windows 10 Home is excellent in businesses that have anywhere from 5 to 30 employees, as the OS enjoys built-in security functions and integrates well with office productivity applications like Microsoft Office.

It’s great for providing employees with access to the internet, email, web-based CRM solutions and other cloud-based functionality.

On the whole, Windows 10 Home is for those organisations that only need to take care of the basics and require an operating system that keeps things simple and easy-to-use for their employees.

Should your IT needs be relatively simple, then Windows 10 Home is the right option here.

Windows 10 Pro

If “simple” isn’t going to cut it for your organisation, we suggest looking at Windows 10 Pro instead.

The biggest benefit of going with Windows 10 Pro is the amount of control it places in the business’s hands over its users’ PCs.

Having access to advanced features like remote desktop, and the ability to make use of Active Directory to authenticate and manage users and enforce IT policies, is invaluable when it comes to ensuring business processes and policies are adhered to.

Added to this is support for Microsoft Hyper-V, which is a built-in virtualisation tool that allows users to run virtual machines within Windows 10 Pro. While Windows 10 Home can also run virtual machines, it requires third-party software to do so.

Another advantage of Windows 10 Pro is the 64-bit version’s ability to support more resource-intensive applications. This is vitally important when it comes to virtualisation as virtual machines run better with access to more RAM. Windows 10 Pro facilitates this by supporting a maximum of 2TB of RAM; Windows 10 Home 64-bit, on the other hand, is limited to 128GB.

Windows 10 Pro also has a dedicated online store called Windows Store for Business, which can be customised by IT to offer employees a specific range of business-approved software and applications. It’s a neat way to put all required business software in one easy-to-reach location, which can lead to less need for desk-side IT support as employees can install the software they need themselves.

As for added security, Windows 10 Pro offers BitLocker, a built-in encryption function that lets users secure hard drives with 128-bit or 256-bit AES encryption. This guarantees peace of mind when employees’ notebooks or desktop PCs handle sensitive business data.

What you need

When to comes to deciding between Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, the ultimate answer should be determined your business needs.

Windows 10 Home caters to those businesses which do not have need of advanced IT functions, and simply need to offer their employees a secure yet easy-to-use OS from which to run their day-to-day software.

Pro, however, focuses on delivering enterprise-focused functionalities like fine control over what employees can and can’t do with their work PCs, advanced features like virtualisation, the option to encrypt sensitive information, and support for more RAM.

If user control, advanced functions, and iron-clad security are your key concerns, Windows 10 Pro is the more appropriate choice of operating system.

To upgrade to Windows 10 Pro from Home at any time, simply click Start->Settings->Update & Security->Activation->Store and complete the process.

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