02-19-2020, 05:40 PM
There are four Windows 10 Enterprise versions that are available and can be considered as recent or the latest versions.
Windows 10 Enterprise (Build 1909)
Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC (Build 1809)
N versions are special versions that Microsoft is obliged to provide due to several laws in different countries. Basically they removed the whole media stack and other features out of this.
Read more: https://www.howtogeek.com/322112/what-is...f-windows/
Mind how it says "Quite a Few Things Will Break". I did install Windows 8.1 Pro N once by accident. I was spending hours on getting audio on the system to work when listening to videos, music or playing something in the browser (or even games). Had absolutely no luck. All time was wasted. I did more research and my only way to go was to reinstall normal Windows 8.1 Pro. After that everything was working normally again. Microsoft actually has a thing called media codec pack or something similar that is supposed to install all the codecs and etc to play media. Guess what... it wasn't supported by Windows N or the media pack itself didn't support Windows N versions.
LTSC (formerly called "LTSB") versions of Enterprise are Windows 10 versions that only receive security updates and have a very long period of support and extended support. These versions come without most Windows 10 apps and without the Windows 10 Store. However you can install all of this yourself with a few simple tricks afterwards. Media works on this versions unlike with N versions. LTSC versions cannot be upgraded from one to another. A fresh installation of the next LTSC version is required. This is basically meant for business environments where you require a very stable OS and one that won't get updated and completely reinstalled every few months or gets new feature updates that break stuff. See usage fields such as hospitals, manufacturing plants and etc.
About licensing. All Windows 10 Enterprise versions are all volume license products that are meant for companies (hence why they're called Enterprise). To activate them you need a KMS server in your company network where a Windows 10 KMS key is installed. Clients in the company domain will connect to that KMS server and get their license for a period of 180 days. After that runs out they will connect again and extend their license for another 180 days and on and on. I'm not sure if there is a OEM or Retail license version of Enterprise is available. I doubt though.
So if you have no connection to a company and a device from them there is no way to activate Windows 10 Enterprise I guess. There is a flaw inside Microsofts activation system though that allows to simulate a Windows 7 upgrade to Windows 10 and grants you a valid digital license bound to the hardware you use. I have observed that this worked with Windows 10 Enterprise, too. It's all probably against Microsoft terms and agreements of course. Antiviruses will pick it up as a virus while it is clean. Not going to provide any links or any additional information but the software is called "HWIDGEN".
You may wonder how I obtained licenses for Enterprise or Enterprise LTSC. Well, that's a perk of my job. I sometimes work from home and thus use a VPN connection to our company network. So I just joined my computer into our domain and use our KMS server to activate my Windows copy. And that's all legal of course since I work for the IT department and our boss has given us green light to do so as long as the device the license is used for is used to work for the company (which I do at least a few times during a month).
If you can however get a license for Windows 10 Enterprise consider getting one for the normal Enterprise. While LTSC might be nice with things like only receiving security updates and nothing else there are many disadvantages that follow quickly. Certain software or other type of applications might not support this version (games sometimes for example). These versions will lack new features and will never receive them until a brand new version of LTSC is released. Even Microsoft themselves are planning to drop support for certain software on LTSC versions. They clearly don't want people to go for LTSC because it is so good (no pesky apps, no damn feature upgrades that reinsall your Windows, no updates that break stuff, more control over the OS and etc). However due to the nature of their business clients (that's how Microsoft makes most of their profit) they still provide LTSC as there are companies that need all of the good things that LTSC brings and can easily forget the disadvantages that would hurt a normal user or a normal employee working in their office.
For example LTSB based on Windows 10 1607 which is what I used for some years... I had to stop using it in favor of actually being able to use certain applications or play some games I wanted to try. Drivers for graphics card stopped supporting LTSB with warning messages. Games wouldn't run because they were not supportin LTSB. So as a normal user your quickly feel left out of the sudden after using LTSC for a few years because everything that is mainstream moves on with the normal release flow.
A positive thing about Windows 10 Enterprise is that you can much longer delay upgrades to the next major build like the next version (2003 probably or so). That's basically a goody from Microsoft because it is never easy in a company to update hundreds or thousands of computers to a new version of Windows. Heck I have to maintain over 300 computers in my company (that is the administrative part of the company). And I also have to maintain another 400 - 800 computers in our education department. We are still using Windows 7 while we transition to Windows 10 Enterprise based on 1809. We have Windows 7 ESU Year 1 licenses for another year of Windows 7 updates and support.
About the tutorial you mentioned. Well, Windows or rather said Microsoft allows to perform Windows version upgrades. This switches your OS from lets say Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro. It at the same time unlocks features that are not available in the previous version. Now you can do this without actually owning a license key for the version you upgrade it to. Which of course means when you do it your Windows 10 installation will run without a license. Which at some point will start to bug you out with messages and etc. Also with Windows 10 running without a licenses means that a part of settings and customizations cannot be changed until a license is installed.
More information:
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...n-upgrades
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...-line-tool
Hint: You can use KMS Client Keys to perform such upgrades without owning an actual license.
--> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...clientkeys
I used this method once (while using our KMS server though) to upgrade a preinstalled Windows 10 Pro version to Windows 10 Education in our education department because I didn't want to reinstall Windows but needed Education to match it to our general guidelines of the education department IT.
... Well, here goes another wall of text.
Windows 10 Enterprise (Build 1909)
- Windows 10 Enterprise
- Windows 10 Enterprise N
- Basically you can't play an media like music, video or similar at all on this version.
- Basically you can't play an media like music, video or similar at all on this version.
Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC (Build 1809)
- Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC
- Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC N
- Basically you can't play an media like music, video or similar at all on this version.
- Basically you can't play an media like music, video or similar at all on this version.
N versions are special versions that Microsoft is obliged to provide due to several laws in different countries. Basically they removed the whole media stack and other features out of this.
Read more: https://www.howtogeek.com/322112/what-is...f-windows/
Mind how it says "Quite a Few Things Will Break". I did install Windows 8.1 Pro N once by accident. I was spending hours on getting audio on the system to work when listening to videos, music or playing something in the browser (or even games). Had absolutely no luck. All time was wasted. I did more research and my only way to go was to reinstall normal Windows 8.1 Pro. After that everything was working normally again. Microsoft actually has a thing called media codec pack or something similar that is supposed to install all the codecs and etc to play media. Guess what... it wasn't supported by Windows N or the media pack itself didn't support Windows N versions.
LTSC (formerly called "LTSB") versions of Enterprise are Windows 10 versions that only receive security updates and have a very long period of support and extended support. These versions come without most Windows 10 apps and without the Windows 10 Store. However you can install all of this yourself with a few simple tricks afterwards. Media works on this versions unlike with N versions. LTSC versions cannot be upgraded from one to another. A fresh installation of the next LTSC version is required. This is basically meant for business environments where you require a very stable OS and one that won't get updated and completely reinstalled every few months or gets new feature updates that break stuff. See usage fields such as hospitals, manufacturing plants and etc.
About licensing. All Windows 10 Enterprise versions are all volume license products that are meant for companies (hence why they're called Enterprise). To activate them you need a KMS server in your company network where a Windows 10 KMS key is installed. Clients in the company domain will connect to that KMS server and get their license for a period of 180 days. After that runs out they will connect again and extend their license for another 180 days and on and on. I'm not sure if there is a OEM or Retail license version of Enterprise is available. I doubt though.
So if you have no connection to a company and a device from them there is no way to activate Windows 10 Enterprise I guess. There is a flaw inside Microsofts activation system though that allows to simulate a Windows 7 upgrade to Windows 10 and grants you a valid digital license bound to the hardware you use. I have observed that this worked with Windows 10 Enterprise, too. It's all probably against Microsoft terms and agreements of course. Antiviruses will pick it up as a virus while it is clean. Not going to provide any links or any additional information but the software is called "HWIDGEN".
You may wonder how I obtained licenses for Enterprise or Enterprise LTSC. Well, that's a perk of my job. I sometimes work from home and thus use a VPN connection to our company network. So I just joined my computer into our domain and use our KMS server to activate my Windows copy. And that's all legal of course since I work for the IT department and our boss has given us green light to do so as long as the device the license is used for is used to work for the company (which I do at least a few times during a month).
If you can however get a license for Windows 10 Enterprise consider getting one for the normal Enterprise. While LTSC might be nice with things like only receiving security updates and nothing else there are many disadvantages that follow quickly. Certain software or other type of applications might not support this version (games sometimes for example). These versions will lack new features and will never receive them until a brand new version of LTSC is released. Even Microsoft themselves are planning to drop support for certain software on LTSC versions. They clearly don't want people to go for LTSC because it is so good (no pesky apps, no damn feature upgrades that reinsall your Windows, no updates that break stuff, more control over the OS and etc). However due to the nature of their business clients (that's how Microsoft makes most of their profit) they still provide LTSC as there are companies that need all of the good things that LTSC brings and can easily forget the disadvantages that would hurt a normal user or a normal employee working in their office.
For example LTSB based on Windows 10 1607 which is what I used for some years... I had to stop using it in favor of actually being able to use certain applications or play some games I wanted to try. Drivers for graphics card stopped supporting LTSB with warning messages. Games wouldn't run because they were not supportin LTSB. So as a normal user your quickly feel left out of the sudden after using LTSC for a few years because everything that is mainstream moves on with the normal release flow.
A positive thing about Windows 10 Enterprise is that you can much longer delay upgrades to the next major build like the next version (2003 probably or so). That's basically a goody from Microsoft because it is never easy in a company to update hundreds or thousands of computers to a new version of Windows. Heck I have to maintain over 300 computers in my company (that is the administrative part of the company). And I also have to maintain another 400 - 800 computers in our education department. We are still using Windows 7 while we transition to Windows 10 Enterprise based on 1809. We have Windows 7 ESU Year 1 licenses for another year of Windows 7 updates and support.
About the tutorial you mentioned. Well, Windows or rather said Microsoft allows to perform Windows version upgrades. This switches your OS from lets say Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro. It at the same time unlocks features that are not available in the previous version. Now you can do this without actually owning a license key for the version you upgrade it to. Which of course means when you do it your Windows 10 installation will run without a license. Which at some point will start to bug you out with messages and etc. Also with Windows 10 running without a licenses means that a part of settings and customizations cannot be changed until a license is installed.
More information:
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...n-upgrades
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...-line-tool
Hint: You can use KMS Client Keys to perform such upgrades without owning an actual license.
--> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...clientkeys
I used this method once (while using our KMS server though) to upgrade a preinstalled Windows 10 Pro version to Windows 10 Education in our education department because I didn't want to reinstall Windows but needed Education to match it to our general guidelines of the education department IT.
... Well, here goes another wall of text.
![[Image: zHHqO5Q.png]](https://i.imgur.com/zHHqO5Q.png)