Microsoft is reportedly releasing another edition of its flagship OS that will be called Windows 10 Home Ultra, supposedly the mid-tier version sandwiched between the regular Home and Professional variants. The company, however, has flatly denied the existence of the product and maintained that "there is no new version of Windows," coming out soon.
This was according to Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet who also reported that Microsoft had refused to offer more details on the subject when pressed for further questions. But Foley was convinced the OS indeed will be issued in another version, specifically for Home users with premium PC hardware.
There have been clues that were pointing to this scenario, the tech journalist stressed, and the latest was from PC maker Dell, which allegedly leaked out the upcoming debut of Windows 10 Home Ultra 64-bit that will power its XPS 13 2-in-1 device.
Despite the denial issued by Microsoft, the possibility remains that Windows 10 Ultra is for real and it might see the light of the day under a different label, Foley reported.
And she is not alone in speculating that a new Windows 10 edition is being cooked up. Well-known blogger Paul Thurrott is in agreement that this new OS from Microsoft will be custom-made for a targeted market and will deliver value-added benefits to end-users.
According to Thurrott's blog on the matter, this new OS will be likely called Windows 10 Home Advanced and will be made available for an extra cost. PC gamers, for instance, are seen to benefit from the OS that is expected to have been optimized for systems with high-end components.
"Windows 10 Home Advanced will support high-end chipsets like the Intel Core i9, AMD Threadripper, Intel Core i7 or AMD FX/Ryzen7 with 6 or more cores, and any Core i7/FX/Ryzne7 configurations with 16 GB of RAM or more," Thurrott wrote.
When exactly the OS is coming out remains a question mark but the Dell XPS leak seems to offer some hints. The PC maker said the XPS 13 2-in-1 will hit the market in time for the 2019 holiday season. If true that the device will run on Windows 10 Home Ultra or Advanced Edition then it will be the first concrete proof that the OS is a real thing.
Picking up on these reports, Forbes ventured a guess that this new Windows 10, if it will ever come out, will serve as an incremental upgrade for premium PCs that in turn will require minimum hardware specs. As can be expected, advanced capabilities will be bundled with Windows 10 Home Ultra such as the ability to control update installation and BitLocker encryption.
