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
MicrosoftHi asdlkf,
I appreciate the passion, but please take a deep breath. I was responding to Mirza who was confused between the Hyper-V feature and the Microsoft Hyper-V Server SKU.
Microsoft Hyper-V Server still required licenses for the Windows Server guests running on top. Unlike Windows Server Datacenter which includes the guest licenses. So I'm a little confused by your statement that it was completely free.
I thank everyone for their feedback, I recognize change is hard and taking away anything which might have been perceived as completely free is unpopular. I would love any specific feedback around the scenarios, and we can look at how to incorporate them into Azure Stack HCI. I thank the several people who have take the time to do so already!!!
Thanks!
Elden
It was completely free.
Just like ESXi is completely free, in perpetuity, when not connected to vCenter or using certain features.
This is a direct competative disadvantage when trying to sell Hyper-V related architectures and solutions to clients. I can no longer propose "we'll start with the free Hyper-V server to get you started and add on Windows Server licensing, System Center licensing, and other related licensing as you grow".
Now, we basically have to price-compete with "well, you need datacenter licensing for everything so we just set the price floor at $5k licensing per host".
- Elden_ChristensenHi asdlkf,
I read your Reddit post and there is one more piece of great feedback you had in there, which is: What about standalone hosts (not clustered)? So you are right, today Azure Stack HCI requires 2+ hosts and requires HCI (meaning Software-defined Storage and optionally SDN). We are looking to change that! As I said above, our goal is for Azure Stack HCI to be the premier hypervisor platform for HCI and beyond. That includes allowing 1-node hosts as well as customers who want a choice in storage, such as SAN or NAS external storage. We are working on it, that's great feedback!
Thanks!
Elden- A 1-node system, where the user has no need for Azure integrations, is pretty much functionally the same as Hyper-V Server - but with monthly licensing fees.
Afraid you've really not convinced me (or seemingly anyone else posting on here) that this is a good move. I'm sure Azure Stack HCI is good for some use cases, but for what many of us are using Hyper-V Server for it simply isn't - we just want a basic, on-prem hypervisor. I will probbaly be moving my standalone test servers to ESXi instead. The downside of this is that they will no longer be able to manage the basic USB-connected UPS units we use with them (Windows-only management software), but I'm sure I can find a workaround (such as an old W10 box running the management software, and a shutdown script).- hah. at least esxi allows for USB passthrough... so you could put a windows 10 VM on ESXi, pass the USB port through to the guest, and run your UPS software on the win 10 VM.
