Hyper-V Server 2022

[DavidYorkshire]

Anyone know whether there will be a Hyper-V Server 2022? i.e. the free version which is just for running VMs and has no GUI?

I've seen mentions on forums that this SKU is being dropped, but not found anything official.

Thanks

[#2]

Hi @AdamB2395,

If I understand the product terms correctly, it applies to replication situations within any hypervisor product, if the purpose of the replication is to temporarily run the 'backup' replicated virtual machine in the event of disaster recovery.

In the general Microsoft product terms for all products there is this statement on 'License Assignment and Reassignment':

'Before Customer uses software under a License, it must assign that License to a device or user, as appropriate. Customer may reassign a License  to another device or user, but not less than 90 days since the last reassignment of that same License, unless the reassignment is due to (i) permanent hardware failure or loss... (the other reasons are irrelevant here). Customer must remove the software or block access from the former device or to the former user. '

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/terms/en-US/product/ForallSoftware/OVOVS

There is nothing against creating a backup of a virtual machine that is never run (after all, that's just normal backup procedure) - but in order to run that backup on a separate piece of hardware, you either need to formally reassign the license to the new product - which involves removing the software or blocking access from the former device - and then you have to bear in mind the rules above that you can't transfer back for another 90 days, unless the reassignment is due to permanent hardware loss - or you could make your life simple and obtain Software Assurance to gain the Disaster Recovery Rights that I mentioned before.

'For each Instance of eligible server software Customer runs in a Physical OSE or Virtual OSE on a Licensed Server, it may temporarily run a backup Instance in a Physical OSE or Virtual OSE on... another one of its Servers dedicated to disaster recovery.'

You could probably imagine a situation where you could 'live with' the license reassignment rights with a limited kind of replication (if your two servers were identical, and you were pretty sure that you would just leave your 'backup' server running in the event of a failover even if you repaired the old one - and it would get more complicated if your backup server itself failed) but it'd get needlessly complicated and it would only seem sensible to use the Disaster Recovery Rights as the cheapest and most sensible way to do what you want.

[#3]

Hi Chris,

When you speak of "reassigning" a license, is anything required to be "physically" done? Or do we just effectively say "right, this Server 2022 license is now assigned to these VMs rather than these", and then run them for 90 days, at which point we could fail back. In other words, how does formally assign a license?

[#4]

Hi @AdamB2395,

Going to have to stop replying to messages soon as it'll probably wind up everyone else subscribed to this thread (and I'm not an expert in Microsoft licensing, check with a reseller) but as far as I am aware, yes, you just 'say' that is what you are doing. I guess this is where it would be a good idea to formally document that decision so that you could demonstrate you had taken the product terms into account if you had a Microsoft auditor come knocking.

So yes, if you failed over, I guess you could formally make that declaration. But bear in mind:

• You can't fail over from the primary server for the first 90 days after installing the product unless the primary server suffered permanent hardware failure or loss.
• You need to fail over all of the VMs on a given server to the backup server; the licenses are assigned to the physical server in its entirety, not the VMs itself, and you can't split them between two servers.
• Unless the backup server suffered permanent hardware failure or loss you would be ineligible to move services back to the original server for 90 days.
• If the primary or backup server had an intermittent or temporary hardware failure and failed back before 90 days had passed (which could happen automatically under some replication scenarios), you'd be in breach. I would investigate to see if you can disable any automatic failover functionality so that you know failover is always a manual process.
• All of this presumes you are using retail or volume licenses. OEM licenses of the kind you purchase 'with' hardware can't be reassigned between servers.

I'm not paid to give you advice though, if you've got further questions probably best to ask a Microsoft reseller who is paid to get it right!

[#5]

The hyperV replication not need any licence migration...
You can't start the two mahines at the same time with same copy of OS (aka licence in US, that not exist in France).

It's the same ID, the same system.
A replication is basicaly a save/backup, as a clone.

You can have 10 systems on the first machine, 10 replications on the second, and moving "for all time" 5 machines on the second hypervisor, with not end delay, because you want split performances, and accept a degraded mode when issue comming on 1 hypervisor for exemple.

Just respect "it's the same machine, so I can't run 2 on the same time with the same licence".

Any people in Microsoft blames you if you start for a short time the two mahine, after any crash (in the case where you have launch the replication for continu work after bug of the main system), to migrate some data for any reasons.

But "short moment" is not 10 years...
It's like 1 or 2 weeks maybe, where the initial machine is not use as service (or 2nd)... 1 day in fact in real situation where we xan imagine this scenario.

Or for time to re-migrate at starting point.

[#6]

Hi Chris,

That is helpful and quite clear. I think talking to a reseller would still be a smart move, but at least for me, the whole 90 day reassignment is probably livable. I was concerned that I would be in breech in simply having a backup, but based on what you've said, I don't think that would be the case.

Thanks again.

[#7]

Hi @SpenceFoxtrot,

I'm not sure the Microsoft product terms allow you to do what you're describing, but at the end of the day that's between you and any Microsoft auditors.

The only thing I'd suggest you might consider is that Disaster Recovery Rights under Software Assurance exist for a reason.

Kind regards,

Chris

[#8]

Hi Chris,

We only ever use replications in the case of a primary server hardware failure. If the general terms for the product license apply, then we should be fine. Having said that, I think looking into SA would be a good move.

Thanks.

[#9]

@Elden Christensen 
If you guys are still monitoring this thread, I recently thought of a solution that may be of interest to you.

So Hyper-V Server Standalone is officially discontinued, but in the last couple years, Linux kernel patches have been put out to be able to make Linux the root partition for a Hyper-V Installation.

So if Microsoft pushed out the rest of what would be necessary to make an on-premises installation of Hyper-V with a Linux root partition, then I think that would satisfy most everyone here.

You could even package it yourself with the official Microsoft Linux distributions CBL-Mariner and/or CBL-Delridge and call it Hyper-V Server again if you wanted to, but this time, there'd be no Windows components. Just raw Hyper-V and Linux.
I'd say the ability to manage it via Powershell in Linux, and some way to connect to the console of a VM would be all we'd really need for a Linux based Hyper-V solution.

Either way, I'd say the pushing of patches to the Linux Kernel implies that this will happen sooner or later, but doing it sooner, and making it the new direction of Hyper-V Server would probably be more than enough to satisfy us dissidents in this thread.

[#10]

Discontinuation of the free ‘Microsoft Hyper-V Server’ is a smaller problem for us as long the MAPS (Microsoft Action Pack Subscription Program) allows us to run our internal/test platforms.
But we remember: MS tried to kill the MAPS program some years ago....

We have a lot of SMB Customers, running 2 ... 6 VMs on fully licensed Windows Server Standard (2012R2-2016-2019-coming 2022), many of them replication to a second server.

You wrote: "With the release of Windows Server 2022, Hyper-V is included as an in-box role in Windows Server 2022 Datacenter, Standard, and Essentials editions just as it has with previous releases for well over a decade."

Attending a training of our server vendor this week I heard there, that Server 2022 will be the last Windows Server with the Hyper-V Role built in. This means, it will not be possible to install the Hyper-V Role in the Windows Server 2022 successor.

If this is true, this will force our SMB customers into ASHCI (one or two nodes) with the very expensive ASHCI licensing model.

So my question:
Is it really true, that the Hyper-V Role will fade out of Windows Server Standard in the version after 2022?

[#11]

@Elden Christensen -@RichardP63 raised an important question below - you've said that 'Hyper-V is used in Azure, Azure Stack HCI, Windows Server, Windows Client, and Xbox among others' - and that 'the Hyper-V feature is not going anywhere and no assumptions should be made otherwise' - can you confirm that this will apply to the next (and future) versions of Windows Server - will we be able to continue to set up Windows Server future versions with the Hyper-V role?

---

@RichardP63 wrote:
You wrote: "With the release of Windows Server 2022, Hyper-V is included as an in-box role in Windows Server 2022 Datacenter, Standard, and Essentials editions just as it has with previous releases for well over a decade."

Attending a training of our server vendor this week I heard there, that Server 2022 will be the last Windows Server with the Hyper-V Role built in. This means, it will not be possible to install the Hyper-V Role in the Windows Server 2022 successor.
...
So my question:
Is it really true, that the Hyper-V Role will fade out of Windows Server Standard in the version after 2022?

---

[#12]

That is FALSE! The Hyper-V feature is included in Windows Server, just as it has always been. You can go try out a Windows Server Insiders build and see for yourself :) Richard and I sorted this out offline and he was able to correct the person who made those statements. The only change is that we are no longer giving Hyper-V away for free, with the Microsoft Hyper-V Server edition.

Thanks!
Elden

[#13]

@Elden Christensen 
"we are no longer giving Hyper-V away for free, with the Microsoft Hyper-V Server edition"

Hello,

And for paid licence ? Paid for hyperV server 2023, with the same features as 2019 ?
If Windows server cost about 1000€, we can imagine a licence for about 100€ ? (Because no of many roles).
And imagine a 10€ cost per 2cpu pack ?

In One buy... no ? (No mensual/annual paid)

[#14]

SpenceFoxtrot might have a point.
I too would easily justify paying a small retail price for pure Hyper-V Server license.
Server Essentials style but restricted to virtualization role only?

[#15]

I think we can conclude that this is unlikely - it's very clear that Microsoft wants to push customers to subscription services rather than one-off licenses. We are seeing this in other areas too - e.g.. the Office 365 Enterprise apps not being supported on Server 2022, which makes that OS largely useless as a terminal services session host - and the main alternative is AVD, which can only be run on Azure services. They must know that this sort of tactic isn't popular, but they know that their customers really have no power as we are tied into their systems, so they can do what they like and keep finding new ways to increase their subscription revenue.

[#16]

---

@DavidYorkshire wrote:
We are seeing this in other areas too - e.g.. the Office 365 Enterprise apps not being supported on Server 2022, which makes that OS largely useless as a terminal services session host - and the main alternative is AVD, which can only be run on Azure services.

---

I thought Office 2021 LTSC is supported on Server 2022?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/microsoft-365-and-office-resources?rtc=1#coreui-headin...

[#17]

https://docs.microsoft.com/fr-fr/deployoffice/endofsupport/windows-server-support

"O365" (and "m365"), and "entreprise apps" he said

[#18]

Yeah, it is, (until 2026) but the 365 enterprise subscription apps aren't. We aren't going to pay for the subscription plans (which we need for the various online services), and then the Office 2021 LTSC licenses as well. The whole point ofthe subscription plans is (or was) that you get the installed programs as part of the subscription. Server 2022 is the first server OS which doesn't support them.

The aim appears to be to drive use of of Azure Virtual Desktop, which will run the 365 enterprise subscription apps, but that can only be hosted on Azure or a connected subscription service such as Azure Stack HCI - if you use a different hypervisor (ESXi in our case) this isn't in option.

I appreciate that this has gone off-topic, but it highlights the same basic approach as that which appears to be behind the withdrawal of Hyper-V Server - withdrawing or limiting the functionality of on-prem products, in order to drive traffic to subscription services which are either Azure-hosted or will only run on-prem if using linked Microsoft systems which also require subscriptions (such as Azure Stack HCI).

[#19]

Hello,

New strategic way for MS : Stop updates for HyperV Server before 2029 !

Since 3 months or more, we all have the same update error about defender :

"1> Update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus antimalware platform - KB4052623 (Version 4.18.2207.7): Failed

Installation Result: Failed"

https://i.ibb.co/M28gNXG/2022-10-11-14h15-10.jpg

Maybe you have never paid attention, but just try to list update and try to install the KB4052623.
Tested it on fresh install continue to occur the pb.

The proof the pb is known since "a lot" (more than 3 months) :

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/910954/windows-defender-update-failes-on-hyper-v...

https://www.google.com/search?q=hyperv+defender+platform+fail+2207

[#20]

@SpenceFoxtrot 

Microsoft botched the March 2022 engine update and re-released it.

• Manage Microsoft Defender Antivirus updates and apply baselines | Microsoft Learn

This coincides with the breaking of subsequent platform updates on Hyper-V Server 2019 - but not Server Core 2019, though the engine updates continue to be successfully applied. In effect, only one half of each monthly update is now working as intended.

The nett result is that while the engine has correctly remained up-to-date (current version as of August is 1.1.19600.3), the product version remains locked in time at version 4.18.2203.5.

Unless you're a sufficiently-sized client and can log a premier support case, there's nothing you can do about this. This kind of issue isn't going to be acknowledged here.

Cheers,

Lain

[#21]

It's worth noting the following comment:

• Fixed Defender Platform update failure on Server Core 2019 SKUs

Taken from this month's update summary:

• Manage Microsoft Defender Antivirus updates and apply baselines | Microsoft Learn

It's sufficiently vague that it may provide relief for Hyper-V Server 2019, which has the issue in my environment where "normal" Server Core does not.

Cheers,

Lain