PC World – December 2015

FEATURE
WINDOWS 10 PRO
Before Windows 10 launched, I would have argued that enthusiasts
would want to remain on the Windows Insider branch, testing out new
patches as quickly as possible. Even small business owners wouldn’t
mind using Windows 10 Home, I thought, as who wouldn’t want to
receive the latest patches as quickly as Microsoft could deploy them?
And then, as Windows
10 neared, reports
circulated of new updates
breaking multimonitor
setups with certain Nvidia
cards . A firmware update
that Microsoft pushed to
the Surface 3 and Surface
Pro 3 failed, and had to be
If you’re a conservative type,
Windows 10 Professional lets
you defer updates for up to
several months (security
updates excepted).
reissued. And by default, Windows doesn’t tell you that updates or
patches need to be installed.
Part of the issue is a fundamental conflict between hardware
makers and Microsoft. Microsoft thinks the latest drivers should be
routed through its own servers, while hardware makers reserve that
right for themselves. That can cause some problems around which
drivers are considered “the latest.”
In other words, patches do occasionally cause things to go haywire,
which means that Home users could wade through some wonky
updates as Windows 10 evolves. Murphy’s Law says things will go
wrong. Bugs will happen. Updates will be applied. If you’re a
conservative type, Windows 10 Professional lets you defer updates for
up to several months (security updates excepted). That chance to wait
and see if anything blows up might add an extra layer of peace of mind.
5. FEATURES FOR BUSINESSES FIRST
Several features in Windows 10 Professional are aimed squarely at the
business market. Domain join, for example, allows you to bring in your
own PC and connect it to the office domain. Group policy
management allows an IT admin to control which PCs do what. And if
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