Yes, the New Surface PCs Run Windows 10 Home. Yes, It’s OK (Premium)

Many are feigning indignity at the thought of premium PCs running the lowly Windows 10 Home. Let’s get over ourselves: Microsoft this past year reset its positioning of both Windows 10 Home and Pro, and there are no longer any major reasons for most individuals to choose the more expensive Pro over Home.

But let me offer you this olive branch: I, too, succumbed to group-think when I first heard a rumor, which sounded ludicrous to me, that Microsoft would actually ship both Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2 with Windows 10 Home. I mean, Surface Pro 6 literally has the word “Pro” in it.

But we all need to get past the narrow semantics of this word. And understand, too, that with this new generation of PCs, Microsoft is expanding the net to include a broader range of customers. And one of the ways in which it can do this is to lower prices.

We saw a more extreme version of this strategy with Surface Go. This underpowered and too-small PC can be had for as little as $400 sans keyboard cover. And it, too, ships with Windows 10 Home (stupidly in S mode).

Now, I suspect there were no complaints with this OS choice given the price of the PC. But $50 is $50, and that’s roughly the licensing delta between Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro. And no, the Surface team doesn’t just get Windows for “free” (or for less) because it’s part of Microsoft. In fact, it probably pays more than the bigger PC makers like HP, Lenovo, and Dell, given the low volume of devices it ships.

And that’s not the only way Microsoft is saving money with this new generation of Surface PCs: By not changing the form factors from the previous generation Surface Laptop, Pro, and Studio (dramatically or at all), Microsoft’s manufacturing partners don’t have to go through expensive resets, and the resulting testing and changes that would require.

So these new devices are a win-win. They cost less for Microsoft to make. And they cost less, or the same as, the previous-generation PCs they replace. Since they all come with much more powerful innards, this is a net win for customers.

But this isn’t just about the price.

We can also credit the failure of Windows 10 S, which has since morphed into an “S mode” that is available within every shipping version of Windows 10. When it was first foisted on an unsuspecting public in early 2017, Windows 10 S was really “Windows 10 Pro running in S mode,” and this was the only configuration for the system. So if you wanted to turn it off, which all customers did and still do, you arrived at Windows 10 Pro after the transition. It was the only choice.

Since then, Microsoft has reset what Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro are, and you may recall Brad’s exclusive data dump on this topic from earlier this year. That is, instead of having a strict subset/superset relationship as in the past, both products are now specially tailored for specific audiences. And Windows 10 Home is no longer the sad-sack, low-end offering that was foisted on buyers of cheap plastic PCs aimed at the home.

I was so excited by this change that I pounded out three editorials in one day.

In Exclusive: Microsoft Plots a Transition Year for Windows 10 (Premium), I discussed the general strategy, and how S mode was coming to Windows 10 Home as well. More important for this discussion, I revealed how Microsoft was tailoring Windows 10 Home specifically for individuals (as opposed to business users in managed environments).

“For consumer PCs, Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Home Advanced—a new internal branding used for Windows 10 Home installed on high-end PCs—and Windows 10 Home in S mode will be made available at a variety of price points that range from $25 to $101, depending on PC capabilities,” I wrote.

In A Welcome Emphasis on Consumers in New Windows Strategy (Premium), I noted that while “Windows 10 Pro is seen as the more full-featured product, especially on premium PCs, … very few people would benefit from its unique features.”

“Going forward, that functional gap is changing, and I expect to see even more Windows 10 Home PCs in market,” I added. “There are two reasons for that. One, the free S mode upgrade to full Home noted above. And two, that Microsoft is optimizing Home for workstation-class-PCs and high-end experiences like gaming and VR. Home will make more sense for individuals, even those that used to believe that Pro was the better choice.”

And then, in Windows 10 SKU Moves are a Win for Consumers (Premium), I added that Microsoft, in adding new modes of operation to both Windows 10 Home and Pro, was in effect making the decision easier for consumers. Is the PC for use at home? Then you will need and want Windows 10 Home. Perhaps in S mode. (Not really.) Perhaps in Advanced mode.

“Thanks to the stunning improvements that Microsoft is adding to the Home SKU, there will effectively only be one choice for the vast majority of individuals buying a new PC: Windows 10 Home,” I noted.

Right. And that applies to Surface Laptop 2 and Surface Pro 6. Of course it does.

Now, if you as an individual do want Windows 10 Pro for some reason—it does include the Hyper-V virtualization technologies plus the ability to create BitLocker-protected disks—you can always buy the business versions of the new Surface PCs. (The business versions of the new generation devices are not yet available for purchase. I would expect them to cost $50 to $100 more, because of Pro and Microsoft’s Advanced Exchange warranty.) Or just upgrade to Pro later at a cost of $100.

Point being, we can feign indignation. But there is nothing wrong with Windows 10 Home. So let’s stop worrying about nothing and move on.