How To: "Upgrade" to Windows 10 S

Earlier today I shared the news with you that Microsoft has made Windows 10 S available for those in the education sector so that they can upgrade from other versions of Windows 10 such as Pro, Pro Education, Education, and Enterprise.

This follows the release of full Windows 10 ISOs last week to MSDN and Visual Studio subscribers and since then I have documented my experience of upgrading a Lenovo Miix-720 to Windows 10 S and the challenges it presented.

Going through that process was very educational however, it now seems Microsoft is providing a simpler approach to moving an eligible version of Windows 10 to Windows 10 S.

The Test Windows 10 S on existing Windows 10 education devices document over on Microsoft's Docs portal is completely directed towards IT Pros and System Admins in the education sector. It provides them a detailed method of testing Windows 10 S on their hardware. In addition, as I mentioned in my earlier article about this, there are a lot of caveats that come with moving one of the above eligible versions of Windows 10 to Windows 10 S. If you want to try out Windows 10 S be sure to read all of those items so you fully understand what you are undertaking.

With all of that said, I am here on the other side of upgrading a virtual machine running Windows 10 Enterprise (Version 1703) and can live to tell about the process. So it does appear that this upgrade method can be used by end users outside of the education sector.

Once you are ready to give this a try and you have securely backed up your system and created a Recovery Drive just in case, you can download the Windows 10 S installer from Microsoft and begin the upgrade.

As you will see in this gallery, the process is just like using the Windows 10 Update Assistant to upgrade to a new feature update for Windows 10. In addition, it appears that if you do this on a properly activated and eligible version of Windows 10 Pro, Pro Education, Education, or Enterprise then your Windows 10 S installation should also be activated under that devices Digital Entitlement.

That also means if you decide the app only life on Windows 10 S is not your cup of tea, then you can revert back to your previous version of Windows on that same hardware and your Digital Entitlement should be intact.

Enjoy the experience but make sure you read all the info about this process so you understand what is and is not possible with this method of using Windows 10 S.

Note: I suspect most of you who might try this will be running Windows 10 Pro since the other versions mentioned are not sold at retail. Also, Windows 10 Home is not eligible as an upgrade platform for this testing.

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