I need to upgrade 14 thin clients of the company where I work. They run currently on Windows 7 embeded edition (The original OS).Would you recomend to buy 14 Windows 10 IoT Enterprice LTSC licenses then? Thanks for the video!
That's correct. You can purchase the Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC upgrade and use it for general purpose but the IoT version is strictly for fixed purpose devices and only available from IoT OEMs.
Would LTSC and LTSC IoT behave any differently when it comes to memory limitations, the V2 of Microsoft Edge (considering IoT's Kiosk mode functionality), and/or any other physical installation differences?
No memory limitation differences. The latest LTSC 2021 based on build 21H2 does show IoT in the name of the product and the IoT LTSC edition gets 10 years of support while the non IoT version only receives 5 years. No other physical limitations.
Since the license for iot is tied towards hardware does that mean that I’ll run into problems when I change hardware? I’m building a dedicated music streamer that I will be upgrading and testing different parts on fairly often. Not sure which version I need to purchase
Yes the OEM IoT licenses are physical COA sticker licenses that are applied to the device. The COA license then lives and dies with the device. You are allowed to replace and upgrade hardware as long as the processor stays the same or equivalent. The IoT products are licensed based on the processor so if your device is using a Core i5 processor, you purchase the VALUE license COA sticker. You are allowed to reload and re-activate as many times as you need. You can swap and upgrade hardware as long as you continue to use a Core i5. If you were to replace with a Core i7, then it would require purchasing a new High End license that covers Core i7 processors. But the COA sticker is the license. Once the device has a COA sticker license, you are allowed to reload and re-activate as many times as needed as you add different hardware items to your device. Reach out to me directly at windowsIoT@arrow.com for additional info.
I think you are asking, if a device is loaded with Win 10 IoT Ent LTSC 2019 or 2021, would a Volume CSP license for Win 10 Enterprise LTSC cover it? Technically the answer is no as they are two completely separate products and licensed very differently. If a system was loaded with Win 10 IoT Ent LTSC, it should already have a full OEM license for it. Shoot me an email to ken.marlin@arrow.com to dig into this one deeper.
Yes, the Windows IoT licensing does allow booting to the desktop but most OEM's boot into Shell Launcher and run their own shell. But again, it is allowed and certainly possible. It is regular Windows Enterprise so yes it by default would boot to the desktop.