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
AdamB2395 According to his profile, ChrisAtMaf is not a Microsoft Employee (and neither am I) so directing your unhappiness to them is unlikely to directly reach Microsoft. This thread is pretty much dead, but in an effort to help you out, let me try to summarize what we've learned from Microsoft to date:
1. Hyper-V Server 2019 is still a thing, you can still get it, download it, and use it. It will be supported for at least 5 years from inception, so at least another year, and even after that it can still be used.
2. Hyper-V Server 2022 is *not* a thing, it's not coming out, it's not going to exist. Microsoft has made the decision, and made formal announcements, including one from a Microsoft employee Elden_Christensen in this very thread. That product is gone. Everyone in this thread and elsewhere has given feedback to Microsoft about this, but this is a decision made, and it's not going to change.
3. Microsoft has introduced Azure Stack HCI (Hyper Converged Infrsatructure - see https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-stack/hci/ for details) as a replacement for Hyper-V Server. It is not free. It is however relatively inexpensive, at $10 per physical core per month. It has numerous advantages and is a significant improvement over Hyper-V server, all of which are outlined on the above-linked website.
4. If you do not wish to use, or cannot afford to use, ASHCI, you have alternatives:
* You can buy a perpetual Windows Datacenter Server 2022 (or whatever it becomes) license for each physical box, and run all your virtual machines on there - including as many instances of Windows Server as will fit - all covered under just that one license. Expensive, yes, but you own it outright and, with proper planning, it will be a very good future setup for you.
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* You can just continue to use Hyper-V Server 2019 - it's not going to die in the future, it just won't be officially supported anymore after 2023.
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* You can use a different Hypervisor. One such is called XCP-NG ( see https://xcp-ng.org/ ). It is free. It is Linux-based. It has a free GUI called XO (Xen Orchestra, see https://xen-orchestra.com/ ). It has community support. And it very nicely runs Linux servers and Windows servers alongside each other as virtual hosts.
I personally have been using Hyper-V Server 2019 and loving it. I've also used, and am running some XCP-NG servers. They're also quite nice. I have a pair of Windows Servers (one domain controller and one exchange server) running virtualized on an XCP-NG host, and everything works, and works perfectly, just as you'd expect.
I am not a lawyer, but as I review Microsoft's Licensing Guide here: https://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/4/E64F72BF-55E9-4D85-9EFE-39605D7CE272/WindowsServer2016-Licensing-Guide.pdf it seems pretty clear to me that "Windows Server Standard edition provides rights to use two Operating System Environments (OSEs) or Hyper-V containers." The way I read that is: If your physical machine is running Windows Server Standard Edition, you can run one additional Virtual Standard host. Or, if your physical machine is NOT running Windows Server Standard Edition, you can use your once license to run two virtualized servers.
Of particular note, Hyper-V Server 2019 is not "special" in any way. It does not grant or confer any special license or usage rights. It's a free product, and is just a hypervisor. So it seems to me that your existing setup (two physical hosts, each running Hyper-V Server on the metal, and then two Windows Standard virtual servers on each Hyper-V server) *already* requires a total of two actual licenses. One license is consumed by the two servers on your primary box, and another license would be required by the two servers on your secondary box. Others may correct me, but it seems to me that the fact that your secondary box is some kind of standby/backup machine isn't relevant from a licensing perspective: You would still need a total of two licenses, each allowing you to run two instances as virtual machines, for a total of four virtual machines.
If in your proposed future scenario you used Windows Datacenter 202X on the physical boxes, you could run anything you want virtualized, without limit. If you use anything else - an old copy of Hyper-V Server 2019, or XCP-NG, or Azure Stack HCI - you would still need one Windows Standard server license for each pair of virtual machine images (so a total of two licenses for your four images) - and you would not need anything additional to run any number of Linux or any other free OSes on those hosts at the same time.
So all of that to say that, as far as I can tell from the licensing docs, your current situation would not be changed one bit in the future: To run a total of four Windows Standard 202X boxes plus any number of Linux hosts you would need a total of two Windows Standard 202X licenses, plus some kind of hypervisor host to run on.
In other words, the demise of Hyper-V 2019 doesn't change your situation at all.
Again others here who haven't muted this old thread may provide correction or more insight, but that's how it appears from where I sit, and from the references I've cited above.
For myself, I'm just waiting to buy a new physical box, and then I'm going to go with Azure Stack HCI. That's just me - I'm a Microsoft supporter, and prefer to trust their lead on technology development. I'll still keep an eye on other options (who wouldn't) but I find the new offering compelling (even if not free) and worth checking out.
I hope this information is helpful.
Glen
