Forum Discussion
Hyper-V Server 2022
Free 'Microsoft Hyper-V Server' product update
Since its introduction over a decade ago in Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V technology has been, and continues to be, the foundation of Microsoft’s hypervisor platform. Hyper-V is a strategic technology for Microsoft. Microsoft continues to invest heavily in Hyper-V for a variety of scenarios such as virtualization, security, containers, gaming, and more. Hyper-V is used in Azure, Azure Local, Windows Server, Windows Client, and Xbox among others.
Starting with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019, the free ‘Microsoft Hyper-V Server’ product has been deprecated and is the final version of that product. Hyper-V Server 2019 is a free product available for download from the Microsoft Evaluation Center: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2019
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 will continue to be supported under its lifecycle policy until January 2029, see this link for additional information: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/hyperv-server-2019.
While Microsoft has made a business decision to no longer offer the free 'Microsoft Hyper-V Server' product, this has no impact to the many other products which include the Hyper-V feature and capabilities. This change has no impact to any customers who use Windows Server or Azure Local.
For customers looking to do test or evaluation of the Hyper-V feature, Azure Local includes a 60-day free trial and can be downloaded here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-local/ . Windows Server offers a free 180-day evaluation which can be downloaded from the Evaluation Center here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter
Microsoft remains committed to meeting customers where they are and delivering innovation for on-premises virtualization and bringing unique hybrid capabilities like no other can combined with the power of Azure Arc. We are announcing that Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 was the last version of the free download product and that customers begin transitioning to one of the several other products which include Hyper-V or consider Azure.
Thank you,
Elden Christensen
Principal Group PM Manager
Windows Server Development Team
Could you tell me the URL of the post where you heard that?
- Afraid I can't remember which forum it was now - but it wasn't an official source, hence asking on here.
- EldenChristensen
Microsoft
I just returned from vacation to find that this thread had unfortunately taken a very unproductive turn... I've cleaned up the posts and ask that everyone keep it professional. Yes David, this is a perfectly valid place and is monitored by the development team. Sorry for the delayed response.
Azure Stack HCI is Microsoft’s premier hypervisor offering for running virtual machines on-premises. For testing and evaluation purposes Azure Stack HCI includes a 60-day free trial and can be downloaded here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-stack/hci/hci-download/
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 will continue to be supported under its lifecycle policy until January 2029, see this link for additional information: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/hyperv-server-2019EldenChristensen I just have to say that as a manager for corporate infrastructure that has largely depended on Microsoft's virtualization platform for our numerous locations, this decision has me VERY concerned.
We have used the Hyper-V Server 2016 and 2019 platforms for server testing and development before deploying to our paid Standard and Datacenter hosts, and we were exploring the use of Hyper-V Server 2019 to facilitate a potential VDI solution towards CMMC compliance, but given this latest bad decision on the part of Microsoft, we will likely be moving back to a VMWare-based solution.
As someone who has spent better than a decade as a Hyper-V evangelist, moving multiple companies and clients off competing hypervisors, I actually feel personally betrayed by Microsoft as a result of this decision.
This was short-sighted and highly disrespectful to admins and developers that made the case for using Microsoft's hypervisor over competitors, and it's going to drive smaller companies and new developers and admins to non-Microsoft products.
For a lot of new people in the field (and small business/startup), Hyper-V Server was the "toe in the water" towards a larger and more expensive Windows Server virtualized infrastructure, and you are slamming that door in the faces of the next generation of admins and businesses.
I fear that Microsoft will reverse this decision eventually, but not until the damage is done and you have driven off that entry-userbase into competing products.
