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
Example -
If I have 5000 windows VM's and 2000 Linux VM's does it make sense to co-mingle those on the same hosting effectively reducing efficiencies in windows licensing capacity? Those linux VM's in great number are taking away spots where Windows Server VM's could be.
So Since I'm already hosting AD and Hyper-V clusters using Datacenter edition it would make sense at a larger scale to build a dedicated cluster for running Linux VM's with the (Free) version of Hyper-V with the capability to cluster and tie it to the same AD as what my Windows Server Datacenter cluster is running.
I might of had 8+ hosts for those VM's when all combined in one cluster but now I might have a cluster of 5 hosts for the Windows VM's and 3+ hosts for linux VM's using the free version of Hyper-V. I just saved myself in software licensing for something that shouldn't need Datacenter Edition licensing.
If Azure Stack HCI were to be a true replacement for that scenario it would still need clustering and the capability to utilize SAN storage through iSCSI, FC or SMB. If you are investigating Azure Stack HCI as being a free replacement to what Hyper-V server edition was please consider that scenario.