Azure Arc Server Forum: 2026 Updates
We are excited to announce the fourth calendar year of the Azure Arc Server Forum. We are incredibly thankful to all the customers and community members, who have joined our forum and newsletter from our start back in the Fall of 2023. From January 2026, the monthly Azure Arc Server Forum will be hosted on the third Thursday of each month from 9:30 – 10:15 AM PST. Each Arc Server Forum includes live demos of new capabilities, question and answer sessions with the product group, and feedback opportunities covering Windows, Linux, and SQL Server management, licensing, and connectivity across hybrid, multicloud, and edge environments. Sessions are skipped in July and December for summer and winter holidays respectively. Forum participants also receive a monthly newsletter summarizing updates including: Announcements of General Availability, Public Preview, and Private Previews capabilities including key details and documentation Updates on agent improvements and updates on experience changes Opportunities to provide feedback to and influence the product group’s roadmap or engage in ongoing customer research studies Updates on the invitation and timing of the Arc Server Forum Recordings from the Arc Server Forum are periodically uploaded to the Azure Arc Server Forum YouTube channel: Azure Arc Server Forum - YouTube typically within 2-3 weeks of the Forum. To sign up for the Azure Arc Server Forum and newsletter, please register with contact details at https://aka.ms/arcserverforumsignup/. Thank you!AKS enabled by Azure Arc: Powering AI Applications from Cloud to Edge [Ignite 2025]
A New Era for Hybrid Kubernetes and AI Microsoft Ignite 2025 continues to accelerate Azure’s hybrid vision, extending cloud-native innovation into datacenters, factories, retail sites, and remote, fully disconnected environments. This year’s announcements expand the capabilities of AKS enabled by Azure Arc, making it the most versatile and secure platform for deploying modern applications and AI workloads across any environment. AKS Arc now underpins Azure’s hybrid and edge strategy — and increasingly its hybrid AI strategy by delivering consistent operations, strong security, and flexible deployment models for distributed applications. TL;DR: New AKS Arc offering and features in 2025 Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager for Arc-enabled clusters Public Preview AKS on Azure Local Disconnected Operations Public Preview Improvements to AKS on Azure Local, including lifecycle, portability, additional GPU support and hardware support expansion. Improvements to AKS on Windows Server, improved platform reliability, security, and consistency through fixes to image packaging, dependency handling, node/agent synchronization, certificate and key management, error detection, telemetry and cleanup of stale resources 2-Node High Availability for AKS Arc at the edge Private Preview AI Foundry Local integration for offline/hybrid AI development KAITO on AKS Arc Public Preview for hybrid/edge model deployment Edge RAG on Azure Local Arc Gateway for AKS Arc Public Preview KMS v2 for secrets encryption on AKS on Azure Local Expanded GPU support for AKS Arc on Azure Local (RTX 6000 Ada GA, NVIDIA L-series Preview) AKS Container Apps on Azure Local Public Preview AKS Edge Essentials release for improved stability and offline operations Arc-enabled Azure Monitor Pipeline, Workload Identity Federation, and Azure Container Storage enhancements Azure Linux 3.0 support, Key Vault Secret Store extension Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager for Arc-enabled clusters As customers scale Kubernetes across datacenters, edge sites, and multiple clouds, fleet operations become increasingly complex. To address this, Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager now supports Azure Arc-enabled clusters in Public Preview, extending centralized fleet management to any CNCF-compliant Kubernetes distribution, regardless of where it runs. With Arc-enabled clusters onboarded as Fleet Manager members, teams gain a single place to monitor fleet health, enforce governance, and deploy apps and configurations consistently across environments. Intelligent workload placement further simplifies running the right workloads in the right places, helping customers reduce operational overhead while improving agility and reliability for distributed Kubernetes at scale. Fleet Manager now supports Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters for unified multi-cluster management. Enables centralized health visibility, consistent configuration rollout, and smarter workload placement across hybrid and multi-cloud fleets. Learn more. AKS on Azure Local: Evolving the Hybrid Managed Kubernetes Platform This year, AKS on Azure Local introduces several major enhancements that broaden where and how customers can deploy AKS as their managed Kubernetes platform at the edge. Disconnected Operations Public Preview AKS on Azure Local can now operate entirely offline, supporting customers in sovereign, regulated, or isolated environments. Clusters can be deployed, managed, and updated without continuous Azure connectivity, syncing only when connectivity is temporarily restored. Small Form Factor Bare-Metal Preview The new SFF edition brings AKS to compact industrial PCs and constrained retail or factory environments. It delivers bare-metal performance in a much smaller footprint, including optional GPU support for edge inferencing. Improvements to Azure Local Azure Local continues to mature with expanded hardware compatibility, improved lifecycle reliability, and better workload portability across cloud and local deployments — enabling enterprises to standardize on AKS across all tiers of infrastructure. 2-Node High Availability for the Edge For space- and cost-constrained environments, AKS Arc can support HA clusters with only two nodes, enabling robust production workloads in places where traditional 3-node clusters are not feasible. Operational Excellence with AKS Arc Enterprises operating distributed Kubernetes fleets will benefit from new governance and connectivity capabilities. AKS Arc Gateway Public Preview Arc Gateway simplifies hybrid connectivity by streamlining cluster onboarding and reducing required firewall rules. This creates a more secure and operationally efficient pattern for managing large fleets of Arc-enabled clusters. KMS v2 for Kubernetes secrets encryption at rest in etcd KMS v2 enhances Kubernetes secret encryption for hybrid and on-prem clusters, delivering improved reliability, stronger security boundaries, and consistency with Azure’s cloud-native cryptography approach. AKS as the Hybrid AI Application Platform AI is the defining theme of Ignite 2025 and AKS enabled by Azure Arc is now the foundation for deploying AI where the data resides. Organizations increasingly need to run AI models in datacenters, factories, field environments, and sovereign locations, and this year’s updates establish AKS Arc as Azure’s platform for distributed and offline AI workloads. AI Foundry Local: Build and Fine-Tune AI Models Anywhere AI Foundry Local brings Azure AI Foundry’s core capabilities: the curated model catalog, development tools, templates, and fine-tuning support into customer environments. It allows developers to run foundation models locally using optimized execution paths for GPUs, NPUs, and CPUs; fine-tune models with LoRA/QLoRA in regulated or offline scenarios; and package model artifacts for deployment on AKS clusters. This enables a complete hybrid AI development loop that works both online and fully disconnected. KAITO Public Preview on AKS Arc KAITO automates model serving across cloud, datacenter, and edge. Now available on AKS Arc, it provides one-click packaging, optimization, and deployment of models built in AI Foundry Local. Customers can run ONNX, Hugging Face, or custom models with edge-aware performance optimization across diverse hardware, including CPU-only and GPU-accelerated nodes. Expanded GPU Capabilities Hybrid AI workloads benefit from expanded GPU options, including general availability of the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada, preview support for NVIDIA L-series GPUs, and new GPU Partitioning (GPU-PV) support for efficient resource utilization. These capabilities make it possible to run high-performance inferencing and training workloads across a wide range of hybrid deployment scenarios. RAG on Azure Local: Bring Generative AI to On-Premises Data RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) on Azure Local enables organizations to ground AI in their own on-premises data without moving information to the cloud. Delivered as a first-party Azure Arc extension, it provides an integrated retrieval pipeline for ingesting, indexing, and querying enterprise content stored in datacenters or edge locations. With support for hybrid search, multi-modal data, evaluation tooling, and responsible AI controls, organizations can build RAG applications that remain fully compliant with data sovereignty requirements while reducing latency and improving accuracy. By running the full RAG workflow locally — from retrieval to generation — customers can create intelligent applications that leverage proprietary documents, images, and other unstructured data directly within their secure environments. Expanding Application Capabilities at the Edge AKS Container Apps on the Edge A major milestone this year is the public preview of ACA on the edge, enabling teams to bring the simplicity of Azure Container Apps to Azure Local. Developers can deploy AI-powered microservices, inference endpoints, and event-driven applications at the edge using the same ACA programming model used in Azure. AKS Edge Essentials The latest release improves cluster stability, enhances offline lifecycle operations, and strengthens both Linux and Windows support, making it easier to operate AKS at scale in constrained or intermittently connected environments. Enhanced Storage, Telemetry, and Security for Hybrid AI Distributed AI workloads require robust identity, storage, and observability patterns, and Ignite brings major updates in all three areas. The Arc-enabled Azure Monitor Pipeline improves telemetry ingestion across disconnected or segmented networks, caching data locally and syncing to Azure when connectivity is available. Workload Identity Federation for Arc enables secure, secret-less identity for workloads running at the edge. And Azure Container Storage enabled by Arc, now expanded for AKS Arc clusters, provides a high-performance persistent storage layer suited for vector stores, embedding caches, cloud ingest and mirror. Conclusion Ignite 2025 represents a major step forward for AKS enabled by Azure Arc as both a hybrid Kubernetes platform and a hybrid AI application platform. With disconnected operations, edge-native Container Apps, improved GPU acceleration, KAITO for unified model serving, AI Foundry Local for offline model development, and a fully consistent operational model across cloud, datacenter, and edge, AKS Arc now enables organizations to run their most critical cloud-native and AI workloads anywhere they operate. We look forward to continuing to support customers as they build the next generation of hybrid and edge AI applications.
Azure Local 22H2 Clusters: End of Service and Feature Degradation
Azure Local (formerly Azure Stack HCI) version 22H2 reached End of Service (EOS) on May 31, 2025. As communicated earlier, this means: No further security updates or bug fixes will be provided. CSS support is limited to upgrade assistance of the existing environment only. What’s Changing? Around February 23, 2026, Microsoft will begin degrading features on 22H2 clusters. These changes align with Microsoft’s Modern Lifecycle Policy, which requires customers to stay current with servicing and system requirements to maintain support. Under this policy, failure to upgrade can lead to significant degradation of product functionality, starting with: Disabling ESU: Extended Security Updates will no longer be available. Disabling WSS: Windows Server Subscription benefits will be removed. Once these changes take effect: Customers will not be able to purchase or renew ESU or WSS for 22H2 clusters, meaning: ESU updates will no longer be offered, leaving guest operating systems exposed to security vulnerabilities. Guest operating systems will no longer be licensed, which can lead to compliance violations and potential service disruptions. Any degraded feature will not be restored under best-effort support. Customer Responsibility If the customer chooses to remain on 22H2: They assume full responsibility for any security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, or government regulatory requirements associated with running an unsupported version. Microsoft does not provide guarantees or remediation for risks arising from continued use of 22H2. Next Steps To maintain a secure and supported environment: Upgrade to 24H2 as soon as possible. Learn how to upgrade → We strongly recommend planning your upgrade now to avoid service disruptions and compliance risks.Accelerate your cloud migration journey with Azure Arc resource discovery in Azure Migrate (preview)
With Azure Migrate's new Arc-based discovery (preview), you can leverage your existing Arc-enabled servers and Arc-enabled SQL Server instances to quickly gain insights into: Migration readiness for Azure targets such as Azure VMs, Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Managed Instance. Savings potential for different migration strategies—all without deploying new on-premises infrastructure.
Windows 11 25H2 – Update KB506881 causes unexpected reboots (no BSOD, silent restart)
Hey everyone, just wanted to report a serious issue I encountered with Windows 11 25H2 related to the update KB506881. After installing KB506881 my PC randomly rebooted without warning — no BSOD, no crash report, no error on screen. Only the event log showed “unexpected shutdown / Kernel-Power (Event ID 41)”. Removing the update completely solved the issue. Since uninstalling it, my system has been 100% stable with zero unexpected restarts. Reproducibility: Install KB506881 → system performs unexpected shutdowns / reboots Uninstall KB506881 → issue disappears immediately System details: Windows 11 25H2 (Build: 26200) AMD Ryzen 7800X3D (but issue seems unrelated to hardware) No BSOD / no memory dump / no bugcheck created Reliability Monitor only shows “Unexpected Shutdown” What I already did: Removed KB506881 manually → issue gone Blocked the update using PowerShell + scheduled task (hourly) to prevent Windows from reinstalling it Logs: Event Viewer → Windows Logs → System Shows: Kernel-Power 41 (unexpected shutdown) immediately after KB506881 installation. Has anyone else experienced unexpected reboots after KB506881? If yes, please comment so Microsoft can see how widespread this is. I also reported it via Microsoft Feedback Hub. Thanks!
Windows 11 not updating to Windows 11 Insider Preview Feature Update (26220.7051)
Respected Madams/Sirs, I am facing a very unexpected problem while updating to Windows 11 Insider Preview Feature Update (26220.7051), which encounters an error and says, "couldn't extend system reserved partition". My disk has a lot of free space available, but the EFI, of course, was full with 6mb left, so I had to extend its capacity. To fix this, I tried numerous methods, but they eventually proved fruitless. Tried extending the EFI size (currently 100 MB) using GParted, but couldn't, so created a new EFI with a 500 MB size. Executed the necessary steps and commands to make sure the computer used the new EFI as its primary EFI. The computer boots using the new EFI, but the update error hasn't gone. Tried clearing unnecessary files from the original EFI. Nothing worked. Tried cleaning my hard disk, which of course might not be the key for this since the error is related to EFI, not the hard disk itself. Still, nothing worked. To put it short, I may have tried every method possible, but nothing has worked. I urgently require assistance. My current Windows version is Windows 11 Home, version 24H2, OS build is 26120.6982, on a Dell Inspiron Laptop Please help. Thanks!Operate everywhere with AI-enhanced management and security
Farzana Rahman and Dushyant Gill from Microsoft discuss new AI-enhanced features in Azure that make it simpler to acquire, connect, and operate with Azure's management offerings across multiple clouds, on-premises, and at the edge. Key updates include enhanced management for Windows servers and virtual machines with Windows Software Assurance, Windows Server 2025 hotpatching support in Azure Update Manager, simplified hybrid environment connectivity with Azure Arc gateway, a multicloud connector for AWS, and Log Analytics Simple Mode. Additionally, Azure Migrate Business Case helps compare the total cost of ownership, and new Copilot in Azure capabilities that simplify cloud management and provide intelligent recommendations.Cannot update my window from 24H2 to 25H2
Hi, I faced problem that I cannot update to 25H2 from 24H2 the error is "We couldn't install this update, but you can try again later (0x800f0983) Solution that already tried (with Microsoft Support) DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth --> No error sfc /scannow --> No error chkdsk /f /r C: --> No error in place update (reinstall window but keep personal files) --> got this error "Error 0x8007042B - 0x2000D - Installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during MIGRATE_DATA Operation" have anyone faced this problem before and how to fix?Public Preview: Audit and Enable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) for Azure Arc-enabled Servers
Windows Recovery Environment is a secure, isolated partition that enables diagnostics and repair when a system encounters critical failures – such as a stop error (commonly known as the blue screen of death). WinRE provides a reliable fallback mechanism for mission-critical workloads, allowing IT administrators to recover systems quickly and securely. With this Public Preview, Azure Arc introduces a set of Azure Policies that allow organizations to audit and enable WinRE across their fleet of Arc-enabled Windows Servers. These policies are powered by the Machine Configuration component of the Azure Connected Machine agent, which ensures secure and compliant configuration enforcement. Through the Azure Policy, the Azure Connected Machine agent detects whether WinRE is configured and reports its health status. If WinRE is not configured and the WinRE partition has been provisioned, customers can enable WinRE through the Azure Policy. These Azure Policies are available at no additional cost for servers covered under: Windows Server 2012 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) Microsoft Defender for Servers Plan 2 Windows Server Software Assurance attestation Windows Server Pay-as-you-Go licensing For other servers, these policies will incur charges associated with Azure Machine Configuration. To get started, deploy and assign these Azure Policies to Azure Arc-enabled servers in your existing subscription. [Preview]: Audit Windows machines that do not have Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) enabled [Preview]: Configure Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) on Windows machines Auditing and enablement of WinRE through Azure Arc underscores the capability of Azure Arc to increasingly afford resiliency across hybrid, multicloud, and edge workloads.
