While Hyper-V is included with your Windows 10 Pro license, it needs to be downloaded and installed separately. If you plan on running VMs, this feature might be worth the cost of Pro, but if virtualization is all you need, there are free products like Virtualbox that offer more features and work with multiple operating systems. Hyper-V is a Windows-only hypervisor used for running virtual machines on CPUs that support virtualization. Does that anonymous download that claims to fix performance actually work? Or is it malware masquerading as a useful program? You could install a virtualization solution and run the program in a sandbox so it won't actually cause harm, or if you have Windows Pro you get that feature as part of the OS. Normally, we'd just say don't run any suspicious files, but some people are curious. Secure Boot is available on both Pro and Home versions of Windows.

While it may provide peace of mind to any user, it’s another feature aimed at businesses where security is a top priority. Trusted Boot protects your PC from rootkits and works in conjunction with Secure Boot to help keep your system malware free and in your control by checking every component of the startup process before loading it. Be sure to get an SSD (or HDD even) that supports the necessary hardware acceleration for Bitlocker if you don't want to lose performance. Again, other software can accomplish similar encryption, but it's not built into the OS. The latest iteration of Bitlocker also allows for the encryption of individual files for more flexibility than the all-or-nothing approach of previous versions. Bitlocker provides full disk encryption so you can keep your data safe from hackers.

If you’re concerned about security and want to protect your data from intruders, or you’re coming from MacOS and want something comparable to Apple’s Filevault, you’ll want to spend the extra money on Pro.

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