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
MicrosoftWe innovated sconfig, and it is true that it now has dependencies on PowerShell. The new sconfig is in AzS HCI, Windows Server 2022 core, and if we had shipped a Hyper-V Server 2022 it would have been in there as well. So it wouldn't have been a differentiator per se.
I'm curious why you want to remove PowerShell, as that obviously has some major management trade-off's?? I'm assuming your goal is more about .NET'less? Would love to better understand the scenario / goals. Are your feelings different about .NET Core with PowerShell7?
Can you elaborate on your footprint feedback? Disk drives for the boot device are plenty big these days... which value is important to you? We have lots of room to further optimize the composition of AzS HCI... but I want to understand what's most important to you.
One of our very intentional goals with AzS HCI was for it to be familiar and love current Hyper-V admin's. That's why it uses the same tools and management experience... such as PowerShell, Windows Admin Center, and all the existing MMC tools work as well (Failover Cluster Manager, Hyper-V Manager, etc...). For a customer that doesn't desire Azure, they can use AzS HCI as they are using Hyper-V today (in WS or Hyper-V Server). The only difference is that it's a subscription model. For those looking to augment on-prem with hybrid capabilities, we provide the Azure integration to enhance AzS HCI... and with a goal that it's just incremental on top of a Hyper-V admin's existing skillset. But it's your choice if you want hybrid capabilities or not.
The 60-day free trail with AzS HCI is a little different than an Evaluation with a perpetual license. Eval is a special product that is time-bombed and can only be used for a period of time before you must move to a licensed product. The free trial gives the first 60-days as free for all subscriptions, so that's a value you can take advantage of for production deployments as well. So some trade-off's. AzS HCI also charges based on core usage to scale down for SMB customers.
Hyper-V Server and Windows Server Datacenter are the licensing inverses of each other, where Hyper-V Server provided a free host OS and required the guest OS's be independently licensed. Where Datacenter is a purchased license and the guest OS's are free. With that said, I'm curious how you were licensing the guest OS's on Hyper-V Server? Windows Server Standard is also an option for SMB customers (with VM limits).
Thanks!
Elden
EldenChristensen wrote:With that said, I'm curious how you were licensing the guest OS's on Hyper-V Server?
I am using Hyper-V Server 2019 paired with Windows Server 2019 Standard licensed under SPLA which I host for my customers, plus a Linux VM for management and other tasks not suitable for Windows Server. It works great, I like the low memory footprint, ease of management (Windows Admin Center), and being able to move VMs between physical hosts easily if need be.
Under the licensing terms of SPLA (The SPUR) I am allowed to use the full Windows Server 2019 for the sole purpose of hosting the licensed server:
Standard edition permits use of one Running Instance of the server software in the Physical OSE on the Licensed Server (in addition to one Virtual OSE), if the Physical OSE is used solely to host and Manage the Virtual OSE.
- Running Instance means an Instance of software that is loaded into memory and for which one or more instructions have been executed. (Customer “Runs an Instance” of software by loading it into memory and executing one or more of its instructions.) Once running, an Instance is considered to be running (whether or not its instructions continue to execute) until it is removed from memory.
Instance means an image of software that is created by executing the software’s setup or install procedure or by duplicating an existing Instance.
- Physical OSE means an OSE that is configured to run directly on a physical hardware system. The operating system Instance used to run hardware virtualization software or to provide hardware virtualization services is considered part of the Physical OSE.
- Operating System Environment (OSE) means all or part of an operating system Instance, or all or part of a virtual (or otherwise emulated) operating system Instance which enables separate machine identity (primary computer name or similar unique identifier) or separate administrative rights, and instances of applications, if any, configured to run on the operating system Instance or parts identified above. A physical hardware system can have one Physical OSE and/or one or more Virtual OSE.
- Virtual OSE means an OSE that is configured to run on a virtual hardware system.
- Licensed Server means a single Server to which a License is assigned. For purposes of this definition, a hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate Server.
- Server means a physical hardware system capable of running server software.
- License means the right to download, install, access and use a Product.
- Manage OSE means to solicit or receive data about, configure, or give instructions to the hardware or software that is directly or indirectly associated with the OSE. It does not include discovering the presence of a device or OSE.
As you can see, the wording is very convoluted. And everyone knows that if you ask 5 different Microsoft Reps what the License means, you will get 5 different answers.
I interpret this to mean that the physical machine can run WS2019 in Hyper-V to run the licensed WS2019 in a VM, and no other VM. Even if that VM had it's own license as well or had a license belonging to another customer or was a Linux VM. It doesn't let me spin up a second Hyper-V host without extra licensing to act as a Hot Spare.
I rather remove the ambiguity of this and stick with Hyper-V 2019 to avoid licensing confusion and not have to worry about it, and having maximum flexibility in putting any VM onto the host that I need to.
I am not going to be buying Azure just to host a VM, thanks but no thanks, I will switch to free software before I would do that.
I am pleased that I can keep this going until 2029, which I appreciate, but we all know that Microsoft starts putting less effort into maintaining old products well before the official EOL. Plus we won't be getting WS2022 features such as being able to run the Hyper-V MMC snap-in locally, or AMD-V Nested Virtualisation.
If it was about some people using Windows Hyper-V as a Desktop OS, although I never heard of that, and it's against the license, you could have put in watermarks and the like to discourage such use.
Hopefully the licensing of WS2022 would be loosened up at some point to to be less restrictive in using it only as a Hyper-V host
