

With this improvement, the OS can detect a higher level of SMM compliance, enabling devices to be even more hardened against SMM exploits and vulnerabilities. In this release, Windows Defender System Guard enables an even higher level of System Management Mode (SMM) Firmware Protection that goes beyond checking the OS memory and secrets to other resources like registers and IO. This feature is built on top of System Guard Secure Launch to reduce the firmware attack surface and ensure that the System Management Mode (SMM) firmware on the device is operating in a healthy manner - specifically, SMM code can't access the OS memory and secrets. System Guard has improved a feature in this version of Windows called SMM Firmware Protection. Thus, the LTSC 2021 release is not a direct replacement for LTSC 2019, which has a 10 year lifecycle.įor more information about the lifecycle for this release, see The next Windows 10 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release. They only work in conjunction with a KMS server.Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 has a 5 year lifecycle ( IoT Enterprise LTSC continues to have a 10 year lifecycle). Note: You cannot use a GVLK by itself to activate a Microsoft product.

In the table below, Windows versions ending with "E" are the international versions, and those ending with "N" are the versions without Windows Media Player. If you are unsure of the exact version of Windows, click on the Start orb, right-click Computer, and select Properties from the menu that appears. You'll use the appropriate GVLK to update installations of Windows that used MAK activation to the new (November 2010) MKS activation method. Use this table to find the correct Generic Volume License Key (GVLK) to use our Key Management Service (KMS) with the edition of Windows installed on your computer.
