Windows 10: Upgrade Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

The PC I have it on is old tech and pretty mundane. I only upgraded to Workstation because I can. It's free for me to use so why not. *Wink

 

I've posted about this in length on Reddit, but yes I have noticed a significant difference on both my tower Workstation and Lenovo P71 workstation laptop (which came with Win 10 Pro for Workstations' media).

NVDIMM-N support alone is huge, and PfW optimizes the synergy between the NVDIMM-N memory and M.2 NVMe SSDs quite well out-of-the-box. After making a few GPO changes, tweaking indexing and setting the virtual memory paging file to a static custom size the difference was even more substantial.

SMB Direct, with a RDMA-capable network adapter, provides a huge boost in throughput and substantially lowers CPU usage.

Full usage of the Intel Xeon E7 series (all Xeon/server grade processors).

Hyper-V is more polished, particularly its virtual switch setup. It also utilizes VT-d I/O (and I'm certain AMD's IOMMU) at a much more beneficial level.

Right now it's a super-solid setup OS with 16 GB NVDIMM-N memory, 2 M.2 NVMe SSDs, quad Xeon E7-8890s, dual 2-port (4 total ports) Gigabit LAN cards with one card dedicated exclusively to a Hyper-V 64-bit guest system with secure VT-d access (just for testing), and I tossed in 2 spare regular WD Red NASWare HDDs that I decided to use solely for Storage Spaces setup with RTFS.

One hardly needs high-end hardware to notice a difference. Simply logging multiple CPU cores' throughput, heat and overall rates of high processing while playing a fairly intensive game or multitasking will show a difference.

Simply setting up a VM using Hyper-V with a dual-NIC card (that tons of regular motherboards have now) will show a difference.

Using any sort of VPN/interweb/domain network paths will show a difference.

Lastly, I did write a PowerShell script that will convert Windows 10 Home (Core) to the full and authentic Windows 10 Pro for Workstations edition. It does not simply change the EditionID like Microsoft recommends when upgrading editions offline, but also changes the XML data to PfW values.

Here's the XML data from my physical copy of PfW sent by Lenovo with for my P71 workstation laptop:

Code: WIM Information: --------------------- Image Count: 1 Compression: LZX Part Number: 1/1 Image Index: 1 ------------------- Name: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations Description: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations Flags: ProfessionalWorkstation WIM XML Information: --------------------------- <WIM> <TOTALBYTES>3508490595</TOTALBYTES> <IMAGE INDEX="1"> <WIMBOOT>0</WIMBOOT> <WINDOWS> <ARCH>9</ARCH> <PRODUCTNAME>Microsoft® Windows® Operating System</PRODUCTNAME> <EDITIONID>ProfessionalWorkstation</EDITIONID> <INSTALLATIONTYPE>Client</INSTALLATIONTYPE> <SERVICINGDATA> <GDRDUREVISION>0</GDRDUREVISION> <PKEYCONFIGVERSION>10.0.16299.0;2016-01-01T00:00:00Z</PKEYCONFIGVERSION> </SERVICINGDATA> <PRODUCTTYPE>WinNT</PRODUCTTYPE> <PRODUCTSUITE>Terminal Server</PRODUCTSUITE> <LANGUAGES> <LANGUAGE>en-US</LANGUAGE> <DEFAULT>en-US</DEFAULT> </LANGUAGES> <VERSION> <MAJOR>10</MAJOR> <MINOR>0</MINOR> <BUILD>16299</BUILD> <SPBUILD>0</SPBUILD> <SPLEVEL>0</SPLEVEL> </VERSION> <SYSTEMROOT>WINDOWS</SYSTEMROOT> </WINDOWS> <NAME>Windows 10 Pro for Workstations</NAME> <DESCRIPTION>Windows 10 Pro for Workstations</DESCRIPTION> <FLAGS>ProfessionalWorkstation</FLAGS> </IMAGE> </WIM>[/quote]
And here is the XML data from my conversion script:

Code: WIM Information: --------------------- Image Count: 1 Compression: LZX Part Number: 1/1 Image Index: 1 ------------------- Name: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations Description: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations Flags: ProfessionalWorkstation WIM XML Information: --------------------------- <WIM> <IMAGE INDEX="1"> <WIMBOOT>0</WIMBOOT> <WINDOWS> <ARCH>9</ARCH> <PRODUCTNAME>Microsoft® Windows® Operating System</PRODUCTNAME> <EDITIONID>ProfessionalWorkstation</EDITIONID> <INSTALLATIONTYPE>Client</INSTALLATIONTYPE> <SERVICINGDATA> <GDRDUREVISION>0</GDRDUREVISION> <PKEYCONFIGVERSION>10.0.16299.15;2016-01-01T00:00:00Z</PKEYCONFIGVERSION> </SERVICINGDATA> <PRODUCTTYPE>WinNT</PRODUCTTYPE> <PRODUCTSUITE>Terminal Server</PRODUCTSUITE> <LANGUAGES> <LANGUAGE>en-US</LANGUAGE> <DEFAULT>en-US</DEFAULT> </LANGUAGES> <VERSION> <MAJOR>10</MAJOR> <MINOR>0</MINOR> <BUILD>16299</BUILD> <SPBUILD>15</SPBUILD> <SPLEVEL>64</SPLEVEL> </VERSION> <SYSTEMROOT>WINDOWS</SYSTEMROOT> </WINDOWS> <NAME>Windows 10 Pro for Workstations</NAME> <DESCRIPTION>Windows 10 Pro for Workstations</DESCRIPTION> <FLAGS>ProfessionalWorkstation</FLAGS> </IMAGE> </WIM>[/quote]
I can post it up if anyone's interested in testing PfW. It just needs either a AIO, multi-index version of the fall Creator's Update that contains Windows 10 Home - which can be downloaded from Microsoft and elsewhere - or a single-index image of Windows 10 Home.

 

Hi, can you tell or sent me the PowerShell script that will convert Windows 10 Home (Core) to the full and authentic Windows 10 Pro for Workstations Edition, please?

Thanks

 

Hi,

Keep in mind that you probably won't be able to activate it for now though.

Cheers, *Wink

 

Thanks for the reply. I was specifically wondering if in your experience the OS detected all 4 of you XEON processors? As I said, my install is only detecting 2 of my 4 processors (only 20 of the 40 physical cores), and I'm trying to troubleshoot/wondering what others' experience has been.

 

Hi,

i always have a Windows 10 Pro for Workstations Key, but after the upgrade from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Pro for Workstations it still shows only 2 of the 4 installed sockets, so i have to do a clean install with the right ISO of Windows 10 Pro for Workstations.

Cheers

 

Yeah, that is exactly what I experienced. After the upgrade, it did not detect the 4 sockets (only 2). Have you found an ISO for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations? Last I checked, I could not find one.

 

The Info for my Visual Studio Subscription (MSDN) Windows 10 Mutli Edition ISO says its included. However, if I boot from it and skip entering a key, its not in the list of installable Editions? I suspect, but haven't verified, that if I was to enter a workstation key it would clean install workstation. Boot from the Media Creation Tool ISO, and try entering your Pro for Workstation key, and see what happens.

 

I would be curious to know if that worked.

 

I'd be happy to test your script for PfW *Wink

Thanks in advance.

 

You'll still need a product key to activate. Just so you know.

 

Luckily I have Digital License activation with the 2YV77 key

Just want to create a proper PfW ISO for clean installs without having to install Pro then upgrade to PfW.

 

Ah, OK, carry on. *Wink

 

I think MS have changed it and there is another option. This worked for me on 16299.125.

Source

I just went straight to the store, searched for "Pro" and it was the top result.

You click on "Install" here:





And "Yes, let's go" here:





And it converts it in seconds with no other pop-ups and no need to close any apps - at least I didn't.





Interestingly after converting to Pro for Workstations searching for "Pro" in the Store finds nothing whereas before it is top of the list.

 

Hi,

I assume you clicked on "I already have a key" first because this is what I see in the MS Store: 125$ to buy a WS license.

Cheers, *Wink

EDIT: OK, I get it now. That's when for you are already running WS and you need to reinstall using the Pro edition ISO.
After which the store allows you to get the WS upgrade.