Windows Server on ARM64 (Insider Previews)

[Steskalj]

When will there be a preview build of Windows Server on ARM? There is demand for it from developers, and devops personal as well. It is known that it already partial exists due to the article on Azure Host OS.

Azure Host OS – Cloud Host - Microsoft Community Hub

Please release this so we can test it against our code.

[#2]

Hi Steskalj, Thanks for your interest in Windows Server on Arm. We are evaluating this opportunity so your feedback helps. Please feel free to share the scenarios that you want to run as that would help our planning.

[#3]

I am looking to run this on low wattage endpoints in manufacturing facilities where ARM would be beneficial. Also, I would want to use this in our future high density private cloud infrastructure. We are looking at ARM based servers since we can run a large amount of them in a smaller footprint.

[#4]

I volunteer to test this out, as Windows Server on ARM is a very important step towards making the Windows on ARM developer experience complete, which it can't be without local virtual machine labs. While Windows 11 on ARM can run within Hyper-V on ARM, the real deal is *Windows Server* for Active Directory and all the Windows Server roles (RD Session Host, RD Gateway, AD CS, IIS, SQL Server, you name it, it has to be Windows Server, not Windows Client).

I've noticed Windows Server ARM64 *updates* are apparently available in UUP, but the base images are missing, so it's not possible to reconstruct ISOs using common UUP media creation tools.

My primary goal is to port my collection of PowerShell scripts that leverage Hyper-V + PSDirect to build a local lab of VMs in Hyper-V for testing with Remote Desktop Manager: https://github.com/Devolutions/devolutions-labs

WinNAT is still missing on WoA, but it's being worked on. If we could have Windows Server on ARM images as an Insider Preview, I could at least port the script that creates a golden Windows Server image and start using it on my Windows Dev Kit, which has sufficient resources to run this lab.

And before someone suggests running labs in Azure - that's a different use case, one which costs a lot more than paying for electricity and network on a 800$ dev kit with 32GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. cloud-based labs are a complement, not a replacement, of local labs.

[#5]

@Steskalj Thanks for sharing your usecase.

[#6]

Thanks @Marc-Andre for sharing your requirement and interest in Windows Server on Arm. That helps in our evaluation of Windows Server on Arm opportunity. However, its early for us to share any timeline for release of preview for developer community.

[#7]

I would love to test out Windows Server Arm in our environment. We are one of the only TK-12 private schools in San Diego and we have a few projects we are working on. We have tested Windows 11 ARM on machines for our students and all runs great. We are also working on some projects for our student body where we virtualize Windows 11 ARM. We would like to try to virtualize Windows server arm on different machines for our students to test. Please include me on the list to test.

[#8]

Interesting idea

[#9]

One potential ARM64 Server Scenario (as well as client Scenario) would be support for installing on M1, M2, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, etc Apple Silicone Chipsets. As Microsoft should always be interested in increasing market saturation and revenue, granted Microsoft has stated it has provided all the technical specifications to Apple in hopes that they would develop the rest of the code needed to run ARM64 based Microsoft OS's, Apple would have zero financial incentive for developing and deploying this additional needed code. It would be most useful in Network Architechtures that use both types of machines. Microsoft developing the rest of the needed code, would increase it's products' usefulness and thus increase both saturation and revenue. Whether anyone likes it or not, this looks to be a more frequent scenario for Network Engineers to have to deal with just based on the current market trends.

[#10]

@OLDMAN2018 

Yup! Exactly what I am working on. I am installing Windows 11 ARM on M2 using Parallels and it works great. But, I would like to install Windows server the same way but MS has not produced a Windows server ARM which is killing me :\

There is a lot of potential here if this happens. 

[#11]

Hi! Any updates on this one yet? Windows Server on ARM release date? :grinning_face:

[#12]

You can donwload the the latest Windows Server 2025 ARM Insider Build from UUPdump.
Search it and you will find it ;)

[#13]

Hi @jtorres955,

Thanks for sharing your scenario for Windows Server on Arm. We are evaluating Windows Server on Arm opportunity but do not have any plans to release Windows Server on Arm in near future.

Regards

[#14]

This is sad. Window 11 on ARM is a small niche, especially since there is no Windows Phone and I doubt you'd support Windows 11 ARM64 on a Lumia 950XL, mostly since there is not enough RAM to run it well. Windows Server on ARM is where the market is heading. I don't know the Arzue-ARM64 slice vs. Azure-AMD64 size, could you tell them?