On 31/08/2015 14:28, VanguardLH wrote:
occam wrote:

On my personal laptop I have Win8.1 Home. I plan to 'upgrade' to Win
10 Home in due course.

Is it worth upgrading to Win 8.1 Pro first before I do the transition
to Win 10? (I hear Win 10 Pro has more options regarding automatic
updates than Win 10 Home).

You always upgrade to the [near] equivalent edition. You don't get to
upgrade to a more robust edition that you didn't pay for in the first
place. If you want Windows 10 Home then upgrade from Windows 7/8 Home.
If you want Windows 10 Pro then upgrade from Windows 7/8 Pro/Ultimate.

Pro has always had more admin options than Home. For example, with Pro
you get the policy editors (gpedit.msc and secpol.msc). Not with Home.

See:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/windo...ws-10-editions
(no differences until you get to the "Business experiences" section)
http://malwaretips.com/threads/windo...parison.49774/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions

Unless you actually [think you] need the Pro admin/domain features then
why pay more for Win8 Pro to get Win10 Pro for features you won't use or
don't understand?

(My Pro update comes free as I have access to my university's group
licence, also for use on my home PC).

Then BUY a single-use license from your college store. You'll probably
get an academic discount. You do NOT get to upgrade a license you never
owned. The volume (group) license you use is the property of the
college, not you. You don't upgrade their license (unless, of course,
you want to pay to upgrade all their "seats").

You only get to upgrade YOUR license. From what you said, YOU don't
have a license to Win8. That license is owned by your college.

Secondary question- does anyone know what the procedure for updating
from a private version of Win 8.1 to a group license Win 8.1 Pro
is?. (I discovered the usual upgrade path does not work. MS does not
allow me simply to upgrade from Home to Pro by typing the group
license key.)

YOU don't get to upgrade to a volume (group) license. You would first
have to buy a volume license so you can upgrade all "seats" (licenses).
Are you the sysadmin for your college that handles the volume licensing?
You now have a domain at home?

You will need your own Win8 license so you can upgrade your license to
Win10; else, wait until your college gets Win10 to dole you out one of
their seats.


Good stuff, Vanguard. I'll stick with Win8.1 Home (OEM) for the time
being. As you say, the university may eventually decide to make
available Win10 Pro eventually. I may not need all its network
features, but limiting the way Win 10 updates (with Pro) is a definite
'must have' for me.