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
How is anyone finding Azure Stack HCI? Am aware that it’s the recommended alternative - but the reviews are awful (and for me, credible as anyone who’s tried to use a new Microsoft product since they moved to Azure first and early releases can testify) - released too early, updates break basic functionality due to a lack of testing, slow, ignorant, terrible support).
https://www.reddit.com/r/AZURE/comments/1cu3mtl/has_anyone_migrated_from_vmware_to_azure_stack_hci/
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1auuzmj/azure_stack_hci/
If it wasn’t for the Azure Hybrid Benefit, there’s no reason to move from Windows Server + Hyper-V role for me. Anyone happy with it?
TBH, after rearranging the hardware/software lifecycle, (which I’ve spent the last several years doing), the lack of Hyper-V server vs core+role has diminished to nothing. So over it by now… This (years old) product change from MS should no longer be a factor in any solution design by this point.