- launches October 3, 2017
- is required for Windows Pro systems with Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron processors
- includes a Microsoft royalty increase based on hardware specifications
- enables new features that Microsoft will make available in with the fall update but some features require new hardware capability to support in the future
- requires new sets of SKUs to be offered
- does not require an image change
- For customers using Intel Core i3/5/7 CPUs, workstation systems will be deployed with Windows Professional.
- For customers using Intel Xeon CPUs, workstations systems will be deployed with different Windows Professional for Workstation PC SKUs based on the specific selected CPU.
- Resilient file system (ReFS): Enhance the resilience, performance and scalability of workstation machines by running Microsoft’s server grade ReFS file system designed for high fault tolerance and to handle large data volume. Applications should re-test with this feature. HW requirement: most likely two or more storage drives in RAID mode, need to re-format when going from NTFS to ReFS
- Fast I/O with Persistent Memory (NVDIMM): Enable demanding workloads to access important files at the speed of memory with high-end persistent memory hardware configurations. HW requirement: new Intel Skylake SP+ and Skylake W Xeons with future NVDIMM-N storage + BIOS update
- Faster File Sharing with SMB Direct: SMB Direct facilitates file transfers between PCs and Servers with large datasets, all with high throughput, low latency and low CPU usage. Limitation: Feature not available via wireless LAN, only via selected LAN card
- Expanded Hardware Support: 4 CPUs + 6TB memory. Currently, no Dell platforms to support
