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
Thank you again Elden_Christensen for engaging with this thread and dealing with all of the complaining that is being leveled unfairly at you. There is as always a large silent majority that I think is grateful for Microsoft and what it brings to the world.
I grew up with Microsoft, from BASCOM for the TRS-80 way back when, all the way through today. I'm a (small) customer, a (small) partner, and a (small) shareholder, so I look at this from lots of different perspectives. I used Hyper-V Server 2019, and was sad at the news as were many people (because who doesn't love free stuff?!) but I understand and agree that Microsoft can't be investing tons of money in giving away free things. It doesn't scale, and it doesn't help.
Everyone here needs to understand that Microsoft didn't celebrate this decision, any more than they might celebrate layoffs or any other trimming. They're not sitting around in some room going "Ha ha ha, let's get 'em!" They would much rather be all things to all people. But they just can't right now. It's clear they gave it long thought, and did this because they believed it would be in the best interests of everyone's future.
At the end of the day, many of us, myself included, want Microsoft to survive, and grow, and thrive, because Microsoft brings a lot of good to us all. And if that means shedding some free stuff, whether it's HyperV or SQL... or trimming in other ways, there are many out there who support Microsoft and want it to survive. I would hate to live in a world where Microsoft wasn't pushing technology ahead.
Elden_ChristensenI hope you will convey these things to your team. There are lots of us out here who appreciate Microsoft, and you specifically, and I at least want to make sure you know that.
For everyone else: If you are a home user, and can't afford anything at all, HyperV 2019 is not going anywhere. You can still get it! It's still supported. It's got 6 more years ahead of it - with an extended end date (I just looked) of January 2029. Go download it. Play with it. Have fun! It's still there!
Or, how about just running your workloads on HyperV under Windows 11? That works too, and it's not going anywhere, and it's just fine! AND FREE with your Windows 11 Pro license.
Or, if you're a home user but can't stand the thought of using a Hypervisor with ONLY six more years of support, grab something like XO.
For everyone else, the employees and the companies out there, we should all be paying for what we use. I can't get my dayjob to pay for squat, so they're on XO for now. But for my consulting stuff, I paid for a Datacenter 2022 license, and yes, it was expensive, but it was a worthwhile investment, and highly recommended.
But let's not be beating on the Microsoft rep because we don't like the fact that our lollipop isn't everlasting. Elden's doing us all a favor by even engaging here, and even if you don't agree with a corporate decision, he nevertheless deserves our thanks, not our derision.
3 interests of hv server :
1) Free
2) Very low consumption
3) Minimum attack surface
No sense to use windows pro/ent for these 3 raisons, windows server for 1st and 3rd raisons.
I dont understand that :
"and VMware's demise in the wake of the acquisition is imminent" (translate in french hard to understand).
MS will buy VMWARE ?