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
bmartindcs I would love to hear more about details of your usencase.
Is there any licensing term that forbids "hosting" VMs for own use on Windows 11 Pro using Hyper-V? You can even leverage ReFS and Storage Spaces on Windows 11 Enterprise.
Just asking if you need nothing more than Hyper-V Plus running Windows Client VMs. Technically it is the same core OS and Hyper-V. Licensing Windows host and VMs plus access apply. If you need more than just the ability to run VMs then Windows Server is viable.
SpenceFoxtrot yes the footprint and attack surface was minimal with Windows Server Hyper-V SKU compared to Windows 11 / Enterprise. You can still harden it easily like security baseline GPOs and good notes from the field about this. The OS will use more RAM compared to Hyper-V SKU. You can find which Servicesw are not used deactivate all features and optional features not needed. Eventually you have licensing for Windows 11 LTSC with lesser bells and whistles like Microsoft Store which I do not see as threat.
Just trying to think outside the box for you. Check licensing terms could imagine that this is possible with Windows Pro / Enterprise as parent OS.
If it just run Linux give.Windows 11 23H2 /24H2 preview a chance. If it runs Windows Server you need to license these anyway and at any time. There's no change, when ist Hyper-V Server 2019 is gone. Let me know if this is helpful or anything is unclear. Happy to help.
I'm not interessed by large os like windows 10/11. Too high, too many updates etc.
Same for windows server ; too many forced reboot, where HyperV server not needed.
I'm going on proxmox finaly.
- The Statement about number of reboots is not true. It's one LCU and one dotnet Update. The dotnet can now be installed with the LCU and often do no longer require seperate reboot. This got addressed back in time.
If reboots are forced or not is a matter of your settings, local GPO or Domain GPO. Extremely controlable for Windows Server and Clients.
I am not disagreeing about to fuss, it's your decision to change to a not that good hpervisor and ecosystem at costs of security, Performance and handling in case things break. And the Proxmox underlying OS Breaks easily esp for driver updates. - I'm not sure aout that.
But I know windows server needs more than 1 reboot per month usually. Hyper-V server had monthly patches requiring a reboot, so in that sense it's little different from any other version of Windows Server.
