Official Windows 10 S & Office Apps Frequently Asked Questions from Microsoft Support

The Surface Laptop, which was officially unveiled in early May by Microsoft, is now available through multiple retail channels as of 15 June 2017.

That means support documentation is starting to come online not only for the hardware but the operating system as well.

Surface Laptop ships with a new version of Windows called Windows 10 S and it has some unique differences from its Windows 10 Home and Pro siblings.

The two biggest differences are that desktop software can not be installed on the operating system because of its higher security profile and that means only apps from the Windows Store are authorized for installation.

Secondly, the Office 365 apps are being added to the Windows Store so they can be installed on Windows 10 S, these apps are in preview right now, but eventually any Office 365 subscriber should be able to use the Windows Store versions with a valid subscription. These apps are the desktop versions but they have been brought to the Windows Store through Microsoft's Desktop Bridge - previously known as Project Centennial.

A Frequently Asked Questions page has also been published on Microsoft's Support Site about the new OS and, while we had to do some speculation in early May when it was first announced, we can now turn to that FAQ for clearer answers about Windows 10 S.

An additional FAQ has been published from the Office team about Office on Windows 10 S and how the new Office 365 apps will work that are in the Windows Store.

If a Surface Laptop owner decides to upgrade to Windows 10 Professional between now and the end of 2017, they will be able to do so at no cost. However, after the new year that upgrade will cost $49.

Microsoft indicated at the announcement in early May that this upgrade process was one way only and that there would be no way to revert back to Windows 10 S. Well, over the course of the weekend several sites are reporting that the recovery image that can be downloaded from Microsoft for Surface Laptop is based on Windows 10 S and therefore does give users an option for returning to Windows 10 S however, that would be a full reinstall versus a downgrade.

I continue to look for an opportunity to go hands on with Windows 10 S and see what that experience is like and will provide full coverage when we get the opportunity to do that.

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