Which version of Windows to use: Advice please

[robjduk]

Morning all,

I have always stuck to LTSB Windows and am happy to continue however its time to refresh my staff laptops and there are a handful of features we could benefit from so have a some questions...

 

-Do the large version updates hit Windows 10 Education edition the same way they do at home (black screen with large time consuming update).

-What are people's experience using Education/Pro for school?

-Can you deploy app packages remotely? I have not tried since 8.1 days and found it almost impossible to find the appx packages to deploy.

 

Thank you

[mavhc]

I just use Pro as it's free (as in beer that you already paid for when you bought the computer), there's maybe an hour's downtime when it installs the yearly big update, but teachers don't complain any more, they're used to it. Computers that stay in school I can reboot overnight.

 

You'd mostly interact with the Store for appx, but as it's dead not really worth it.

[robjduk]

there's maybe an hour's downtime

 

 

Think I will stick with LTSC then

 

Thanks

[kennysarmy]

I moved from LTSB to 1903 EDU recently.

 

All seems OK.

 

MDT runs a script to remove all the crud.

[robjduk]

I used to be quite swish with 8 and 8.1 so the crud should be easy enough to manage. Its the fear of coming into everyone shouting at me because an update the size of a whale has decided to hit with no warning.

[kennysarmy]

I used to be quite swish with 8 and 8.1 so the crud should be easy enough to manage. Its the fear of coming into everyone shouting at me because an update the size of a whale has decided to hit with no warning.

 

I use WSUS to manage updates.

[Michael]

I still use LTSB 1607 and LTSC 1809 where required.

 

The next big update I'd look at is the new LTSC when released in 2021.

[Primus]

Yes as others have said you can fully manage updates and when they apply using WSUS or SCCM.

[jthompson]

I've opted for the semi-annual Edu channel, rather than LTSC. Basically because it pushes us to keep those incremental upgrade going, rather than staying with the same release for years on end and facing a big jump down the line (as we did when trying to get ourselves off Win7).

 

Also, I have a funny feeling that MS only really want things like submarines, oil rigs and space stations running LTSC, so sticking to the semi-annual edu channel seems more 'on piste'.

[free780]

Yep say no to LTSC. Visual Studio doesn't support it and there are other gotchas. I'd only update to the 09 releases very gradually.

[aicrd]

Interesting. Didn't know LTSC doesn't support VS 2019. I have it running quite happily here on my desktop. I guess they mean they won't provide tech support for it?

[Primus]

I've opted for the semi-annual Edu channel, rather than LTSC. Basically because it pushes us to keep those incremental upgrade going, rather than staying with the same release for years on end and facing a big jump down the line (as we did when trying to get ourselves off Win7).

 

Also, I have a funny feeling that MS only really want things like submarines, oil rigs and space stations running LTSC, so sticking to the semi-annual edu channel seems more 'on piste'.

 

Yes MS have been quite clear on what they think should use LTSC and it's not the PCs we're using in schools for general purpose work.

[Katy]

I used LTSB 1511 but since 1607 I moved onto Enterprise (and then later Education). I've never had a PC just decide to do a feature update on its own (using MEMCM and WSUS to manage updates), we do the big updates during holidays where we can turn them on and let them sit out the long wait with no teachers about.

[eddyc]

We use LTSC on our ePOS and digital signage.

 

That aside we run Windows 10

Education education on everything. We reimagined everything ever summer. Just moved to 2004 release site wide.

 

Updates are managed via WSUS and GPI and we block the big feature upgrades. We deploy those via imaging the site every summer.

[mavhc]

1 hour's downtime/year is better than having to hand in your laptop for a day to be reimaged every 3 years, and probably lose some settings

[Primus]

1 hour's downtime/year is better than having to hand in your laptop for a day to be reimaged every 3 years, and probably lose some settings

 

On the flipside a nice clean image every year gets rid of the crud that inevitably builds up.

[mavhc]

Depends if shared computer or not, no one's stopping you reimaging anyway.

[eddyc]

1 hour's downtime/year is better than having to hand in your laptop for a day to be reimaged every 3 years, and probably lose some settings

 

We don’t have any staff laptops except for SLT and those aren’t imaged annually but manually updated as required.