Microsoft Releases Windows 10 S ISO to Developers, Education Customers

Kari said:

Read my post just before yours.

I read it. My point is, if you do it the normal way, one single NTFS partition, it ain't happening. That's all. Last time I checked the MCT was still Fat32 compatible. For most people installing Home or Pro it should be more than adequate.

There's also the question of drivers, of which Microsoft warns:

Windows 10 S provides the familiar Windows 10 experience with enhancements targeted at providing users simplicity, security and superior performance. Systems with Windows 10 S installed will only run Windows system components and applications acquired from the Windows Store. Only drivers that have been certified and signed by Microsoft’s Hardware Dev Center portal will be allowed to run. Users should ensure that machines on which they are planning to deploy Windows 10 S have compatible drivers to avoid leaving devices or systems in a non-functioning state and may consider using virtual machines in order to mitigate risk.

alphanumeric said:

I read it. My point is, if you do it the normal way, one single NTFS partition, it ain't happening.

What's the issue? I see none. Just use Rufus selecting NTFS:



That automatically creates a small fat32 partition named UEFI_NTFS (yellow highlight) at the end of the drive which takes care of the boot then transfers control to NTFS partition (green highlight):



Rufus makes all this automatically, works like a charm.

alphanumeric said:

For most people installing Home or Pro it should be more than adequate.

That will change quite soon, WIM files are approaching the 4 GB limit and now with S edition already over it. You need to adapt for changing facts.

Kari

I always use Rufus, it's small, fast and works like a dream. So much important functionality put into such small binary. :)

Kari said:

What's the issue? I see none. Just use Rufus selecting NTFS:



That automatically creates a small fat32 partition named UEFI_NTFS (yellow highlight) at the end of the drive which takes care of the boot then transfers control to NTFS partition (green highlight):



Rufus makes all this automatically, works like a charm.




That will change quite soon, WIM files are approaching the 4 GB limit and now with S edition already over it. You need to adapt for changing facts.

Kari

Hey if that works for you great. IMHO, RUFUS is overcomplicated with too many settings to get wrong for the average Joe. Just "My Opinion", if it works for you have at it. I don't and won't recommend RUFUS to anyone. I recommend using the MCT. Which I expect will continue working. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't it use an install.esd file instead of a wim file?

In other news, 10-S will let you setup with a Microsoft ID. I only mention this because 10 Education won't. And oddly, mine activated with a Digital Licence without me ever entering a key? I clicked "I don't have one" with the intent to enter latter. It must have activated off of my 10 Home DL?

alphanumeric said:

Hey if that works for you great. IMHO, RUFUS is overcomplicated with too many settings to get wrong for the average Joe. Just "My Opinion", if it works for you have at it. I don't and won't recommend RUFUS to anyone. I recommend using the MCT. Which I expect will continue working. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't it use an install.esd file instead of a wim file?

OK, so you do not advice Insiders? I mean, MCT can't do Insider builds. Anyway, the WIM file size is approaching the limit, soon even you have to adapt.

And what about Rufus being complicated with too many settings? The screenshot in my post you quoted shows everything (all four settings) you need to select: Target drive, Partition scheme, File system and ISO file used. That's it, you can now create ISO that can boot a UEFI / GPT computer, regardless how big files it contains as long as your USB drive is big enough to store them.

alphanumeric said:

In other news, 10-S will let you setup with a Microsoft ID. I only mention this because 10 Education won't. And oddly, mine activated with a Digital Licence without me ever entering a key? I clicked "I don't have one" with the intent to enter latter. It must have activated off of my 10 Home DL?

Windows 10 S is basically PRO edition without ability to run Win32 applications (exception: native Windows Win32 apps), you should have noticed this already when setting up the initial user account. Home edition does not allow you to choose to set up a personal or domain / Azure AD account, whereas Windows 10 S setup stops to ask this question.

Next clue is that it can run Hyper-V virtualization and has group policies, both elements missing from Home edition.

It will be automatically activated if the machine has a previous digital license for PRO edition.

Kari

Edwin said:

I still use the Windows 7 USB Tool!

Used that for a long time myself, Windows 8.0 and 8.1. It can be fussy about the ISO's you try to use with it though? I don't remember which ones, but I had a couple (MSDN I think?) it didn't like.

Kari said:

OK, so you do not advice Insiders? I mean, MCT can't do Insider builds. Anyway, the WIM file size is approaching the limit, soon even you have to adapt.

And what about Rufus being complicated with too many settings? The screenshot in my post you quoted shows everything (all four settings) you need to select: Target drive, Partition scheme, File system and ISO file used. That's it, you can now create ISO that can boot a UEFI / GPT computer, regardless how big files it contains as long as your USB drive is big enough to store them.




Windows 10 S is basically PRO edition without ability to run Win32 applications (exception: native Windows Win32 apps), you should have noticed this already when setting up the initial user account. Home edition does not allow you to choose to set up a personal or domain / Azure AD account, whereas Windows 10 S setup stops to ask this question.

Next clue is that it can run Hyper-V virtualization and has group policies, both elements missing from Home edition.

It will be automatically activated if the machine has a previous digital license for PRO edition.

Kari

Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say anything about insider builds one way or the other. And for the record once you install Home or Pro via the MCT, you can accept insider builds. Your not locked out from ever running them.

I was talking about Education only accepting setup with a personal or domain / Azure AD account. Its that or setup with a Local account and then switch to a Microsoft ID. I didn't mention Home anywhere? yes I should have clued in as you say that it was closer to Pro than Home. I was just happy I could do it the easy way and moved on. It's not full Pro though, first thing I saw on the Activation screen was an "Upgrade to Pro message". and it wants a Pro key to do so?