Microsoft compares features across Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education

In May, Microsoft revealed that Windows 10 will have seven editions. At the time, the company only offered a brief description of each, but now it has posted a comparison site (via ZDNet) with more information.

Four of the seven editions will be available for PCs: Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise, and Windows 10 Education. According to Microsoft, all four will have the same “core experiences” — every edition has checkmarks for every feature listed on that tab.

Those features include a customizable Start Menu, Windows Defender, Windows Firewall, fast startup with Hiberboot and InstantGo, TPM support, Battery Saver, Windows Update, virtual desktops, and Snap Assist. It also means the Cortana assistant, the Windows Hello security feature, Continuum switching to tablet mode, and Microsoft Edge will work the same across all four editions. If you switch to the “Business experiences” tab, you’ll see where features start to diverge.

Here are the management and security features:

Windows 10 Home only features device encryption, while Pro will get you six more features. The Enterprise and Education editions have all 12.

Here are the management and deployment features:

These features are a bit all over the place. The superscript 8 indicates that those features won’t be available at launch, but will arrive at some point later.

Here are the security features:

Nothing too surprising here. The superscript 9 text states: “Requires UEFI 2.3.1 or greater; Virtualization Extensions such as Intel VT-x, AMD-V, and SLAT must be enabled; x64 version of Windows; IOMMU, such as Intel VT-d, AMD-Vi; TPM 2.0; BIOS Lockdown.” In other words, you’ll need the right hardware for Credential Guard and Device Guard.

Finally, Windows 10 as a service gets an edition view:

In short, this means Windows 10 Enterprise users will be able to delay features for a long time via the Long Term Servicing Branch. The other editions will have less flexibility.