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
MicrosoftSzeraax Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. For kicking the tires and trying it out we currently have two options:
1. Free Trial - This was originally 30-days, but we bumped it up to 60-days based on feedback. I've even seen some customers script rebuild test systems to reset the trial timer. Azure Stack HCI 60-Day Free Trial Now Available | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
2. Preview Channel - The Preview Channel gives early access to bits, but is not supported in production and comes without CSS support. Join the Azure Stack HCI preview channel - Azure Stack HCI | Microsoft Docs
Note: We also heard the feedback, which is important for your scenario to support 1-node... that's coming soon.
Do either of the above suit your home lab needs? If not, do you need full functionality? What if there was a mode that had significantly reduced functionality but allowed basic VM hosting? Such as maybe removing enterprise grade / production critical features... like clustering / HA? VM mobility? DR capabilities?
Thanks!
Elden
Hi Elden_Christensen good to hear from you again.
With option 2, to have access to a fully featured Preview Channel for free and without time or other limits but on the condition that you will be forced to install updates early to be the 'Guinea pig' (Similar to how the Windows Home users protect the Enterprise users) I think is a reasonable tradeoff/compromise. If we are getting something for free, putting in more testing and risk is reasonable. It also helps you avoid rolling out dodgy updates - We only know that Microsoft really need to improve on testing, the January 2022 Windows Updates were horrendous. We are also generally early adopters using it for our home labs and such so it would be good to try new features and give the early feedback.
The trick here is running an effective Insider Program where the feedback is actually taken on board. So, you would probably want to offer an extremely basic level of support for the purposes of Beta testing. A forum for HCI Insiders would be nice too, when we get together, we can make better feedback. If you don't run it, we'd just gather on other Forums anyway so not a big deal if you don't.
As far as being "not supported and without access to support", I am not fully sure what the implication is when that is said. Does that mean that you'd actually try to prevent running production workload with some kind of technical or licensing limitation? Because that would be a deal breaker. If it is just a case of making it clear "Here you go but you are on your own if something goes wrong" that that is fair, and what we would already expect for a free product.
I would strongly recommend against crippling features to be any less than Hyper-V 2019. Whilst I might not need all the features possible, I can't speak for everyone who might, and even if they don't these are still features to help you get your foot in the door by having these powerusers try them out. HCI/Hyper-V Server is pretty feature limited as it is already, no need to make it even harder.
For me, I am already started transitioned to something else so it doesn't matter that much to me anymore. Thanks to this experience I have discovered some other great options... it really opened the door to other FOSS options throughout their stack as well, and they have really come a long way since last time I played with Linux - You definitely have some tough competition in this space, I just hadn't realised it before. But if you actually end up listening to us and did something in this space, I would at least respect that, it might even help you slow down people leaving the Microsoft stack.