Windows 10 Pro with Office 2021

About this release

This is the standard Professional desktop image with the document suite folded into it, which turns two install passes into one. For anyone setting up a machine that is going to spend its life on documents and spreadsheets, it removes the step where the system finishes installing and then you go and find the suite, download it and wait through a second setup.

The system half is the ordinary Professional edition of the previous desktop generation, at its final feature release. Group policy, remote desktop hosting, drive encryption, domain join and the virtualisation platform are all present, and the build is the one that stopped moving, which is why it is still the preferred choice on machines running validated software or hardware that never became eligible for the current generation.

The suite half is the perpetual generation of the office applications, integrated into the image so it is present at first boot rather than installed afterwards. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are the core, the file formats are the current ones so documents move cleanly to and from any other build, and nothing about them is trimmed relative to a separate install.

The image is multilingual, so display language, keyboard layout and regional formats are chosen during setup rather than fixed into the build. Setup itself is the normal out of box experience: write it to a stick, boot, partition and let it run. Driver coverage is broad enough that network and storage come up on most hardware, with anything missing arriving through the update channel on first connection.

What it does

One install pass

System and document suite arrive together, so a working machine is ready at first boot.

Professional feature set

Group policy, remote desktop hosting, drive encryption, domain join and virtualisation platform.

Perpetual suite generation

The document applications are the standalone generation, not a trial or a trimmed set.

Multilingual image

Display language, keyboard and regional format chosen during setup.

Broad driver coverage

Network and storage come up on most hardware without a separate driver step.

Stable base build

The final feature release of this generation, so the system stops changing underneath you.

Changed in this version

• Image refreshed with the current cumulative update folded in.
• Suite components updated to their current build inside the image.
• Updated storage and network drivers for recent chipsets.
• Setup no longer stalls on machines with mixed drive types.
• Language selection screen simplified.

System requirements

Install order

1. Write the image to a USB stick with a tool that handles bootable media.
2. Back up anything on the target machine before starting.
3. Boot from the stick and choose the display language during setup.
4. Let the first boot finish configuring before opening the document applications.

Worth knowing before you start

File details