What is Windows 10 LTSB? | IT PRO

Patching is one of the most important aspects of running any software on enterprise machines, and Microsoft’s Windows operating system looks to its servicing channels to do this. There are a handful of varying channels that push all kinds of updates, from important security patches to feature updates, to its customers’ devices at different speeds.

The Windows Insiders branch releases rougher builds of the Windows OS to users quite frequently, but the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), by contrast, is the slowest and most stable of these channels.

This manages the updates released to Windows 10 Long-Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) installations, which is designed specifically for a subsection of enterprise users. This iteration is essentially a stripped-back version of the widely-used OS, and doesn’t even feature Cortana or Microsoft Edge, as well as a number of popular Windows Apps.

The ‘Semi-Annual Channel’ (SAC) releases massive upgrades to users’ Windows devices twice a year, while the Windows 10 LTSB branch only updates machines with key security updates – holding back all the bells and whistles. Agreements via the LTSC also last a period of ten years.

This isn’t to say new builds of Windows 10 LTSB aren’t developed and released, but these aren’t pushed to these users automatically in the way that alternative channels may push updates. Windows 10 LTSB users, instead, need external media from which to upgrade their devices.

Windows 10 LTSB vs Enterprise

Only a specific segment of Windows 10 Enterprise users are targeted by the LTSB, and so it’s naturally a particularly niche strand of the Windows 10 ecosystem. It functions as an almost entirely stripped-down version of Windows 10, promising the longest intervals between updates, and so is only useful for very specific deployments. In fact, Microsoft’s user documentation states that LTSB is not intended for most PCs across any given organisation.