Which Windows 11 edition to choose? Home vs Pro, LTSC, N, Edu

When you decide to purchase Microsoft Windows OS you may ask - which edition to choose. Which is better and includes all functions we need. Windows 11 Pro or Windows 11 Home? Or maybe Windows 11 N? What does it mean at all, all these letters. Read this article and you will know about all Windows editions.

 

Windows 11 Home vs Pro

Windows 11 Home. Its name speaks for itself - it is designed for a home computer. And what do you think, maybe it has less functions than Windows 11 Pro? Yes, it is. But it`s enough for usual PC user. You can do anything you want on such a PC. You can work with documents and any programs, play all games that your PC supports. And usually it is little cheaper than Pro edition.

Windows 11 Home Single language. This is the cheapest edition and it has all functions the usual Home has. But there is one difference: you can`t change interface language. As for keyboard languages - add them as many as you want. Usually such edition you can meet on laptops.

Windows 11 Pro. We all want to be pros at computers. But if you have a home PC you won`t get nothing special from Pro edition comparing to Home. Windows 11 Pro is intended for business and it`s additional functions also needed in business, offices and companies, for example:

- Bitlocker when a laptop is lost or stolen;
- group policy settings when connecting a computer to a common business network
- Windows Information Protection (WIP). WIP helps to protect against potential data leakage
- Mobile device management
- Enterprise State Roaming with Azure
- Microsoft Store for Business
- Assigned Access
- Dynamic Provisioning
- Windows Update for Business
- Kiosk mode setup
- Support for Active Directory
- Support for Azure Active Directory

Comparison Windows 11 Home and Windows 11 Pro you can see also on the Microsoft website.

As you can see for home PC user both of home and pro edition - there is no significant difference!

What is Windows 11 Enterprise?

It is intended for a larger business with advanced functions of managing corporate resources, security, etc. There are also enterprise editions with the mark LTSC or LTSB. Enterprise edition contains the maximum set of features that is needed in large offices and corporate networks and is not particularly interesting for a simple user. But LTSC (previously it was LTSB) - in my opinion this is the best edition of Windows (Windows 11 LTSC hasn`t released yet, Windows 10 LTSC 2019 is the last one). It is more stable and more productive if PC is weak.

Note, that according to license agreement you shouldn`t install it to a home computer. 

LTSC (long term servicing chanell) has a separate update channel. The system is updated only when innovations are checked on other systems. Also, the maintenance of this edition is several years longer than rest. At the same time, unimportant functions are cut off. In LTSC there are no beautiful Spotlight lock screen, no cortana, no live tiles in the start-up, no Edge browser, there is no Microsoft store and Windows Hello at all. However, there are features for the business.

The main advantage of the LTSC system is that it is lightweight, uses RAM well and works faster. And this is what we want from our computer. It is sold only to Microsoft corporate customers.

What does Windows 11 N mean?

This is a special version for the EU, which cuts out the multimedia components - Windows Media Player, Groove music, "Cinema and TV", but it is possible to add them or other soft manually.

Windows 11 SE

This is a lite version for students. Using this edition you can install programs only from the Microsoft store and you can`t install soft from web. It is for an budget devices and for controlling by teacher. I think you wouldn`t like it.

Windows 11 Education

This is also a version for studying, more likely for educational institutions. It`s functions very common with the enterprise edition.

By the way, do not confuse Education and Pro Education. The last one is is more similar to the pro edition.

Windows 11 for Workstations

Workstations are specialized machines for computing and there may need such functions as extended hardware support (at the server level), support for creating storages with the ReFS file system and NVRAM technology (non-volatile memory modules).

Windows 11 IoT - edition for terminals, industrial tablets and various smart devices.

Windows 11 Mobile - for some smartphones.

Windows 11 X - for Microsoft tablets with two screens.

Write in the comments what version of Windows do you have and what do you expect from Windows in the future?