Windows 10 Lite

Just a question I have some older PCs that a customer has is there any version of windows 10 like light or embedded that are less resource intensive than windows 10 Pro.

Conversation 20 comments

  • Paul Thurrott

    Premium Member
    12 July, 2018 - 8:52 am

    <p>Not that you could use on a PC like a normal Windows 10 version, no. The closest we have to that is Windows 10 Home/Pro in S mode.</p>

    • helix2301

      Premium Member
      12 July, 2018 - 9:06 am

      <blockquote><a href="#290999"><em>In reply to paul-thurrott:</em></a></blockquote><p>Then I can only install apps from the app store correct no installing chrome or third party software not in the store correct</p>

      • Paul Thurrott

        Premium Member
        12 July, 2018 - 9:19 am

        <blockquote><a href="#291005"><em>In reply to helix2301:</em></a></blockquote><p>Correct.</p><p><br></p><p>A better solution is to go to Settings &gt; Apps &gt; Apps &amp; features and change the option "Installing apps" to "Warn me before installing apps from outside the Store." You're going to need/want drivers, etc that S mode will not allow.</p>

        • christian.hvid

          12 July, 2018 - 12:16 pm

          <blockquote><a href="#291008"><em>In reply to paul-thurrott:</em></a></blockquote><p>Also, lest we forget: S mode doesn't make Windows any lighter or faster – it's still full fat Windows. S mode just prevents you from making things worse over time.</p>

          • skane2600

            12 July, 2018 - 1:30 pm

            <blockquote><a href="#291076"><em>In reply to christian.hvid:</em></a></blockquote><p>I think it's a bit early to claim that S mode can't make things worse over time. Theories abound for Windows alleged slowdown, but nothing has been definitively proven. If we don't know why a slowdown occurs, we can hardly say that S mode will prevent it.</p>

            • christian.hvid

              12 July, 2018 - 3:11 pm

              <blockquote><a href="#291090"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></blockquote><p>When Microsoft introduced Windows S, they didn't claim that the OS would be faster, only that it would "run as fast on day 1000 as it does on day one", or something to that effect. Naturally, that claim is hard to prove until a thousand days have passed, and then only anecdotally.</p><p><br></p><p>Nevertheless, I would say the causes of the notorious Windows bit rot are fairly well known. It's things like poorly uninstalled applications leaving files and registry keys behind, update daemons and other utilities dropped in the Startup folder, buggy device drivers, and of course the usual crop of malware and crapware. The S mode is designed to prevent all of this, simply by only allowing sandboxed apps from the Store to be installed. </p>

              • hrlngrv

                Premium Member
                12 July, 2018 - 3:21 pm

                <p><a href="#291183"><em>In reply to christian.hvid:</em></a></p><blockquote><em>. . . "</em>run as fast on day 1000 as it does on day one" . . .</blockquote><p>So Grampa Windows in a motorized wheelchair.</p>

              • skane2600

                14 July, 2018 - 3:31 pm

                <blockquote><a href="#291183"><em>In reply to christian.hvid:</em></a></blockquote><p>I think the registry theory has been pretty much debunked. </p><p><br></p><p>While it's true that individual update daemons require more bandwidth than a single Store updater, the single updater uses bandwidth too and it will require more bandwidth as the number of Store applications are installed. </p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    12 July, 2018 - 9:07 am

    <p>What sort of specification are we talking about here?</p><p><br></p><p>Windows 10 used to run fine on my old 10" tablet, with Atom processor and 2GB RAM. That said, today, I wouldn't put Windows (any current version) on a PC with less than 4GB of RAM and a dual core processor.</p><p><br></p><p>There is an Embedded version, if you are an OEM – ISTR that we had to sign up for an OEM programme to get the licenses, when we were building industrial terminals, you couldn't just call up a licensing company and order Embedded.</p>

    • helix2301

      Premium Member
      12 July, 2018 - 9:53 am

      <blockquote><a href="#291006"><em>In reply to wright_is:</em></a></blockquote><p>They are HP 6510 duel cores with 2 gigs of ram</p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        12 July, 2018 - 12:12 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#291019"><em>In reply to helix2301:</em></a></blockquote><p>Dual core what? If they're original Core Duos, or Prescott-core Pentium-Ds you'll see a nice improvement over Windows 7 or 8.x. Once you start getting on toward newer CPUs, you won't notice as much difference.</p><p><br></p><p>Number one thing: Upgrade the spinning disks with SSDs if possible. That's going to do more for the machine than the CPU.</p>

    • offTheRecord

      13 July, 2018 - 10:56 am

      <blockquote><a href="#291006"><em>In reply to wright_is:</em></a></blockquote><p>Surprisingly, Windows 10 Pro still runs fine (such as it is) on my (circa 2015) Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 10.1, which has an Atom Z3745 and 2 GB of RAM. I just upgraded it to 1803 (or I should say, it upgraded itself to 1803 despite the fact that I have Group Policy set *not* to do auto updates — apparently, it's no longer respecting those settings in Win 10 Pro, at least not on this device) and there's no noticeable performance difference for the type of stuff I do on the tablet (browsing, email, document editing, stream videos — it even runs Git clients and VS Code just fine). </p><p><br></p><p>One annoyance is that I have to re-install the tablet-specific drivers from the Lenovo support page every time Windows 10 upgrades, otherwise I lose certain capabilities (such as touch, battery meter/icon, display brightness control). I suspect one of these days or months this won't be the case (sometimes I have to run the driver install packages several times for it to take), but it still continues to run Windows 10 acceptably on this old, under-powered tablet.</p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        13 July, 2018 - 9:38 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#291431"><em>In reply to offTheRecord:</em></a></blockquote><p>You're right there with me.</p><p><br></p><p>Even "old" Atom machines at this point are just fine for Windows 10 assuming your needs aren't extravagant.</p><p><br></p><p>Somewhere among my collection is a 1st generation Atom machine. It's an EeePC with an Atom N270. I should fire it up and see how it runs. 2GB RAM max. I should take it all the way to 2GB and shove an SSD up in there, see how that does.</p><p><br></p><p>I've got the feeling that I won't think twice about just sitting there and using it for hours on end.</p>

    • skane2600

      14 July, 2018 - 8:39 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#291006"><em>In reply to wright_is:</em></a></blockquote><p>I agree. In fact, there are a number of comments on Amazon by people who purchased low-end Windows 10 PCs (with a small eMMC) that complain that they don't have enough disk space to get Windows 10 automatic updates to install. </p>

  • rameshthanikodi

    12 July, 2018 - 9:10 am

    <p>Windows 10 itself actually runs quite OK on low-end systems, you should just install Windows 10 and give it a go. If you don't want to take my word for it then there's always Windows 7, which should still be adequate for most things.</p>

  • helix2301

    Premium Member
    12 July, 2018 - 9:38 am

    <p>They are HP 6510 duel cores with 2 gigs of ram</p>

  • christian.hvid

    12 July, 2018 - 9:55 am

    <p>Not sure if this applies to your case, but a decent way to breathe new life into old hardware is to switch out Windows for Chrome OS (actually, a fork of Chrome OS called CloudReady, from Neverware). It doesn't support every piece of hardware, mind you – I just wasted half a day trying to convert a Surface 3 into a Chromebook. But where it works, it seems absolutely fine.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      12 July, 2018 - 8:34 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#291021"><em>In reply to christian.hvid:</em></a></blockquote><p>And it does run beautifully.</p>

  • Lordbaal

    12 July, 2018 - 5:21 pm

    <p>I'm running 10 on a E5400 core2duo, 4GB RAM. And it runs fine. Except that Edge is slow on here. But everything else runs fine.</p>

  • epguy40

    12 July, 2018 - 8:39 pm

    <p>well the closest thing to "lite" might be Win10 LTSB but that's usually for enterprise users.</p><p>I've actually tested/evaluated Win10 LTSB myself which does not include MS Store, Edge, Cortana or any bundled Win10 apps found in the other editions of Win10.</p>

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