Moving out of Windows S Mode

@IratePirate  The "S" in "Windows S" stands for "Security" in that it's tightly locked down.  But it's the same regular Windows 10 OS underneath, so it's not going to perform any better, which means that Windows 10 Home won't perform any worse.  The only performance claim Windows S can plausibly make is that all of its restrictions reduce the opportunity for users to install (knowingly or otherwise) background apps that will consume resources.  But a vigilant Windows 10 Home user can achieve that too.  So I would expect Windows 10 Home to perform exactly the same as Windows S for you, assuming you don't saddle it with a bunch of background apps that wouldn't have been possible to run under Windows S.

Many thanks @jphughan  - I did expect that but I keep reading things like the following:

"Startup times and app activities are generally faster in S mode, which is a plus. The reason for the speed is that there are no Windows legacy apps to slow things down." 

Getting actual info though on what the differences are is tough. The laptop is running the basic citrix work from home software and browsing absolutley fine. I fear that when I flip it I get the fan on all day with the CPU maxed.

I see the basic requirement for windows 10 home cpu is 1GHz, the CPU on this laptop is essentially 1.2GHz (I am not sure if that is really 2.4 as there are 2 cores but amazed they don't market it as such if it is)

Thanks again.

@IratePirate  Quick follow-up note about CPU GHz.  No a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU is not equivalent to a single core 2.4 GHz CPU because not all workloads can be split across multiple CPUs.  But don't get hung up on GHz.  I'm actually surprised the Windows 10 system requirements only specify GHz rather than a CPU generation.  The reason is that CPUs have had trouble increasing raw clock speed for a while now.  Intel achieved 3.8 GHz on the Pentium 4 back in 2004, but even on high-end chips today, you won't find clock speeds much higher.  You'll find a few with "Turbo" speeds higher than that, but those can only be sustained briefly.  If you look at base clock speeds, many modern CPUs will have speeds quite a bit lower than 3.8 GHz.  And that's because after increasing clock speeds proved impractical, the focus shifted toward adding MORE cores rather than building FASTER cores.  But the other key item is architectural optimizations from one generation to the next.  For example, the Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 is a dual core 2.33 GHz processor, and it was launched in late 2007.  It would be absolutely demolished in performance by your i3-1005G1 CPU even though it's "only" a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU -- and not just because your CPU has a Turbo frequency of 3.4 GHz.  It's because your CPU has over a decade's worth of optimizations built into it that allows it to use its performance more effectively, especially with certain specialized tasks like decoding video or working with encryption, among others.

That's why these days it's not very meaningful to list CPU requirements as just a base clock speed, or even a base clock speed and number of cores.  And that in turn is why more performance-demanding applications like games tend to list a minimum CPU generation.

@jphughan  take a bow.

I was actually pondering that part still

I'd ran some benchmark apps on my machine last night and watched the CPU ramp up (and the fan nearly take off) as it topped 3GHz.

Your explanation is great and really interesting.

I was keen for this machine to last a couple of years so keen not to thrash it (my last Dell gave up the ghost after a few years but of course that was a jump from windows 7 to 10 in there and a lot of bloat of various apps being installed/uninstalled). Sounds like my current one is certainly well equipped for the non s mode version.  The RAM and SSD were big factors in the purchase and I never really thought about the CPU until the s mode thing popped up.

Thanks for your time @jphughan