Windows 10 for Education - what is it and why should I use it?

Our university has signed a 3-year enterprise agreement with MS. Among other things, it gives us Software Assurance and the right to use all new versions of desktop Windows products. Till recently, the basic Windows edition that we installed on our workstations was Windows 8.0/8.1 Enterprise.

Now Windows 10 has a new edition - Windows 10 for Education. I can't understand what is it. According to all comparison charts, it has all the features of Windows 10 Enterprise. The only difference I can see is, this edition can be installed as an upgrade on top of Windows 10 Home.

 

Q1: are there other significant technical differences? What edition am I supposed to install now, Enterprise or for Education?

 

Q2: who else has the right to use Education edition? What about personal laptops of students and teachers who study and work at our unive

August 5th, 2015 3:57am

Frederick, license sellers usually know even less about licensing that I do, and even the MS call center often provide incorrect answers. :( Well,, seems I have no choice in this matter but to spend an hour on the phone trying to pry some information out of them.

That "Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10" key - where can I find it? I can see nothing similar to it on the VLSC portal. I can see usual KMS keys attached to the "Windows Server 2012 R2" download, but none of them is marked as "Windows 10". The Windows 10 ISOs have a KMS key attached to it, but usually such desktop keys can't be installed on se

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August 5th, 2015 7:18am

Yes, now I can see the key. Thank yo
August 5th, 2015 7:22am

Well you have an academic Volume Licensing you will get the Education version. It`s the same thing as enterprise just that the license cost differ. 

Well this is a bit blurry. Any one who attend the school should have the rights like: staff, administrators, teachers and students.

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August 5th, 2015 8:23am

Our university has signed a 3-year enterprise agreement with MS. Among other things, it gives us Software Assurance and the right to use all new versions of desktop Windows products.

Q2: who else has the right to use Education edition? What about personal laptops of students and teachers who study and work at our university?

I think the answer to this question, depends on which type of VL agreement your institution has put in place.
e.g. if CASA or EES or whatever, and, if the "Student option" is part of your agreement.

The MSFT Product Terms (although difficult to comprehend, for me at least), seems to explain what your entitlements are, but you must first correctly identify which VL agreement type applies to you.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/product-licensing/products.aspx#PT

From my reading of the various information available, Windows10 Education edition, is basically the same features as Enterprise edition, but, EDU gains the upgrade path from Home edition (commercial organisations like mine, must start with Pro, not Home).

But EDU does not get access to Enterprise edition (if entitled to Education edition you lose rights to Enterprise edition), nor does EDU have access to the LTSB.

This is my personal understanding, based on reading.
I am not a lawyer, nor am I MSFT, nor am I a reseller :)

August 5th, 2015 8:36am

Frederik, thank you about the first part. But the second question is more important. I can't find any official MS document regulating use of this version.

Among other things, it'd be good to know what license key should be used on non-university-owned devices. I have a MAK key for W10 for Education generated by the VLSC portal, but if I use it, anyone can find it out using simple tools easily accessible on the Internet. It means that the key would immediately leak to all interested parties. And W10 KMS activation in an AD domain still doesn't work (providing a Windows Server installation is used as a KMS server).

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August 5th, 2015 9:28am

Well normally you should not used company (in your case school key) for personal use. So all the device that are use for school in the school should be ok. If you need a 100% validation call your license vendor they will provide you with the right answer.



And for the KMS part not use i get it You can use KMS if you have a windows server 2012/windows 8.0 and up

You need to make sure you have the right KMS key (it`s call Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10)

Also need to apply a hotfix KB3058168

August 5th, 2015 9:36am

Don,

We have signed Desktop School agreement (marked as School 3 on the VLSC site). I'm not sure how it's related to all those acronyms mentioned in official documents.

I found the following sentence in the "Product terms" document: "Academic Institutions with Software Assurance for Windows Enterprise or Windows Education have rights to install and use Windows 10 Education. " We do have SA and the right to use Windows Enterprise, so I believe we can use Win10 Edu as well. However, does it imply that our students and staff have the right to install it on their personal devices?

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August 5th, 2015 9:38am

This is from Windows blog:

Windows 10 Education builds on Windows 10 Enterprise, and is designed to meet the needs of schools staff, administrators, teachers and students. This edition will be available through academic Volume Licensing, and there will be paths for schools and students using Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro devices to upgrade to Windows 10 Education

http://blogs.windows.com/BLOGGINGWINDOWS/2015/05/13/INTRODUCING-WINDOWS-10-EDITIONS/

August 5th, 2015 9:42am

Don,

We have signed Desktop School agreement (marked as School 3 on the VLSC site). I'm not sure how it's related to all those acronyms mentioned in official documents.

I found the following sentence in the "Product terms" document: "Academic Institutions with Software Assurance for Windows Enterprise or Windows Education have rights to install and use Windows 10 Education. " We do have SA and the right to use Windows Enterprise, so I believe we can use Win10 Edu as well. However, does it imply that our students and staff have the right to install it on their personal devices?

Evgeniy, I am sorry, I am not sure. I work as an IT Pro in a commercial organisation/enterprise, so I am not intimately familiar with the academic/education agreements/entitlements. Do you have a MSFT account manager or delivery manager? Your account/contract/agreement, must have a contact person (even if sales-type) at MSFT or perhaps at your reseller. Even if this person does not know the answers you need, they can find the correct MSFT person/department for you. My enterprise is very large, and is global, so we have MSFT people of many roles always around us, but none of them are licensing experts, but, they do connect us with the relevant licensing/product knowledge. (especially if they think there is more spending to happen ;)

I would encourage you to get some confirmation of entitlement, prior to deploying to non-institution-computers, because un-doing a deployment/licensing error is very painful :(

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August 5th, 2015 6:02pm

Frederick, license sellers usually know even less about licensing that I do, and even the MS call center often provide incorrect answers. :( Well,, seems I have no choice in this matter but to spend an hour on the phone trying to pry some information out of them.

That "Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10" key - where can I find it? I can see nothing similar to it on the VLSC portal. I can see usual KMS keys attached to the "Windows Server 2012 R2" download, but none of them is marked as "Windows 10". The Windows 10 ISOs have a KMS key attached to it, but usually such desktop keys can't be installed on servers.

August 6th, 2015 1:07am

Don,

Thank you for your reply. I understand that there aren't much salespersons on a technical forum. I already asked our reseller, but I don't know when he'll be able to answer me. MS licensing polices are often unclear even for well-known products. Besides, forum answers sometimes are much more fast, clear and accurate.

When (if) I get an exact answer, I'll post it here for community's information.

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August 6th, 2015 1:09am

Thank you, but it's just a bunch of meaningless words. This description explains nothing. What does it mean, "meet the needs"? What "needs" are they talking about?
August 6th, 2015 1:11am

OK, here is the answer.

There are several types of School agreements. Some of them are old but still in force, others were introduced recently. Here is the link to the main page describing them:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/licensing-programs/licensing-for-industries.aspx#tab=2

Description of at least one of those programs (School Enrollment Volume Licensing, I didn't check other files) contains the section "Special use rights" and the following sentence: "When you license certain products for all of your faculty/staff FTE employees organization-wide, you are eligible to order corresponding subscription licenses for students within the same defined organization at no additional charge." To obtain this right, the user should follow the link http://aka.ms/w10student to access the web portal of an MS-authorized company providing access to this benefit.

As it follows from the text on the portal, you should have a Microsoft Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) or a Microsoft Open Value Subscription Education Solutions (OVS-ES) agreement to access the benefit. So those who have them can give their students the right to use Windows 10 for Education, and the students keep this right even after they graduate.

Those who have signed older types of agreements (CASA in my case) are not eligible for it. Those agreements licensed Windows on per device, not per user basis and gave the right to use Windows only on those PCs they own directly.

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August 12th, 2015 5:00am

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