Windows 11 editions explained: Versions, SKUs, and Home vs. Pro

Microsoft releases new versions of Windows at regular intervals. Each new version has a core set of features and security updates. For Windows 11, those new versions come out once a year, in the second half of the year. 

So far, Microsoft has released four versions of Windows 11: 21H2, 22H2, 23H2, and 24H2. You can probably decode the naming scheme without too much effort: the release date (displayed as the year by two digits), followed by the letters H2 (to represent the second half of the year).

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Each version of Windows is released in multiple editions at different price points. For retail customers, the two most common editions are Home and Pro. All editions share common features, but they are sold and distributed differently depending on the type of device and market for which they’re intended. Higher-priced editions have features that aren’t available in the lower-priced editions.

You will often hear the terms edition and SKU used interchangeably. That’s a common shorthand, and good enough for a casual discussion, but there are some important distinctions between the two terms. The short version? An edition is a general description. A SKU is an extremely specific description encompassing the product name, version, channel, licensing method, and more.

SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit, which is the part number a manufacturer assigns to specific items it sells. A single product, like Windows 11 Pro, is sold in many different physical and digital packages, each with its own part number, or SKU. 

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The full list of SKUs for Windows 11 goes on for page after page, but unless you’re in the purchasing office for a Fortune 500 company, you don’t need to pay attention to those identifiers.

This isn’t unusual in the computing industry. Apple, for example, has a different SKU for every combination of storage, color, and carrier for every iPhone. You will rarely see them because whoever you buy your phone from will filter that list to show only the ones relevant to you.