Windows 11 Pro Retail

With Windows 11 Pro Retail you get the Windows edition for professionals, home offices and small businesses as a Retail license that you can take to another PC later. It adds BitLocker, Remote Desktop and Hyper-V to everything in Windows 11 Home.

In everyday work that means: your laptop's drive is encrypted with BitLocker, you reach your office PC from home via Remote Desktop, and you try out new software in a virtual machine or in Windows Sandbox before it touches your system. The product key licenses Windows 11 Pro for one PC.

Who is this edition for?

• Freelancers and home offices that keep customer data on a laptop and want it encrypted with BitLocker.
• Small businesses that add PCs to a domain or Microsoft Entra ID and manage settings and updates centrally.
• Developers, IT staff and power users who run virtual machines with Hyper-V or test programs in Windows Sandbox.

Features at a glance

• BitLocker: encrypts entire drives and, with BitLocker To Go, USB sticks too, so your data stays protected if a laptop is lost or stolen.
• Remote Desktop: connect to your PC from another Windows PC, a Mac or an iOS or Android device and work as if you were sitting in front of it.
• Hyper-V and Windows Sandbox: run virtual machines and open unknown programs in an isolated environment that is deleted when you close it.
• Business management: join a domain or Microsoft Entra ID and control updates centrally via Group Policy or Microsoft Intune.

What's new in Windows 11, version 26H2?

Version 26H2 is the current annual feature update. The redesigned Start menu offers category and grid views, the taskbar can sit on any edge of the screen, search previews results, and point-in-time restore can roll the PC back to a recent automatic restore point.

What your PC needs

Windows 11 needs a compatible 64-bit processor with at least 2 cores and 1 GHz that Microsoft lists as supported, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, UEFI firmware with Secure Boot, TPM 2.0 and DirectX 12 compatible graphics. For personal use, setup requires an internet connection and a Microsoft account. Not sure whether your PC qualifies? Our free Windows 11 check helps you find out. Microsoft provides monthly security updates and an annual feature update for Windows 11 Pro. Under Microsoft's license terms, you can move the Retail license to another PC later, for example when you replace your computer; remove it from the old PC first. Microsoft also provides support for Retail licenses.

OEM or Retail?

Windows 11 Pro Retail, Windows 11 Pro OEM and Windows 11 Pro all contain the same edition with the features described above. Choose Retail if you want to take the license with you to your next computer; OEM suits a new or newly built PC that you plan to keep, as the license stays on that PC.