Windows Server 2009 End Of Life

[Louann Mauffray]

OnJanuary 9th, 2024, Microsoft will end the extended security updates for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This final year of ESU was only available in Azure. If you still have any devices running the 2008 or 2008 R2 version, please make sure to update to the most current version of Windows Server.

Lansweeper data gathered from 1.3 million instances of Windows Server across more than 35,000 organizations shows that an overwhelming majority of users is in fact running a supported version. Only 6.72% of Windows Server installations are unsupported. However, the data also shows that 20.94% of installations are of Server 2012. With the upcoming end-of-life of Server 2012 in October, these will all need to be upgraded soon.

While not receiving any new functionalities is a minor inconvenience, the lack of security updates for legacy products can punch dangerous holes in your network security. The longer you keep a product around after its EOL date, the more security issues will pop up and go unpatched. Eventually, any unsupported product in your network becomes an open door for security breaches.

Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 originally went end of life on the 14th of January, 2020. Microsoft offered an additional 4 years of Extended Security Updates (ESU). The third (and for non-Azure users last) of these security updates went end of life on the 10th of January, 2023. The final 4th year of ESU (in Azure only) will be going end of life on the 9th of January 2024. From then on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be fully out of support.

In order to keep your environment up to date and secure, Microsoft recommends that you upgrade any machines still running Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 to the latest version. You can find detailed instructions in their Windows Server Upgrades overview.

Our team has put together a Windows Server Audit report that will give you a full overview of when the Windows Server versions in your IT environment will be going end of life. It shows you when the EOL date is and how many days are remaining so you can plan your migrations in advance.

Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will be going end of life on the 10th of October, 2023. In order to keep receiving regular updates and keep your environment secure, make sure to upgrade any machines still running Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2 to the latest version. You can find detailed instructions in the Windows Server Upgrades overview.

If needed, it is possible to purchase an additional 3 years of extended security updates for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Please note that the ESU program is considered a last resort for customers who really need to run certain legacy Microsoft products past the end of support. It only includes critical and important security updates. There will be no new features added nor customer-requested non-security updates or design changes.

August 9, 2022, marks the end of support of the last of the modern lifecycle policy Windows Server version. These versions offered a much shorter support period since they are more closely aligned with the Windows 10 versioning.

Microsoft is ending support for the last Semi-annual release of Windows Server. These server versions were an attempt to mirror the Windows 10 versioning, with a new release twice per year. These versions received support for 18 months following their release. With the end of life of Version 20H2, there are no more supported versions of these releases.

Hi all. I wonder why there are windows versions not in os_eol.inc like windows 7 sp1, windows server 2008, 2012, 2016. Is this intentional or just a mistake? Because I know windows 7 sp1 and 2008 are EOL.

When most ask a question, they only factor in what they know. 19 has been out a long time, most have heard about it, 22 not so much. I think most on this site that are asking about server upgrades are newer or casual admins. So they only ask about what they have heard about, in this case 19.

then there is this aspect, we are upgrading a major software we use here very soon, and i really hope they support 19, last i heard it was still 16. not looking forward to rolling out new 19s, will have a tizzy if i have to roll 16.

its when they mistakenly think its a good idea to upgrade in place from an older OS, ie: 2012R2 to 2019 to 2022 sometimes.

Sadly they are the same people who missed that their older versions had security issues big enough to drive a truck through and all they are doing is moving them to a new version.

Another reason-Microsoft publicly acknowledged a known issue causing Windows Server 2022 virtual machine (VM) blue screens and boot failures on VMware ESXi hosts.

-shares-temp-fix-for-broken-windows-server-2022-vms

Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a group of server operating systems (OS) that has been developed by Microsoft since 1993. The first OS that was released for this platform is Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server, an edition of Windows NT 3.1. With the release of Windows Server 2003, Microsoft started releasing new versions under the name Windows Server. The latest release of Windows Server is Windows Server 2022, which was released in 2021.

Microsoft's history of developing operating systems for servers goes back to Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server. Windows 2000 Server is the first OS to include Active Directory, DNS Server, DHCP Server, and Group Policy.

Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server was released on July 27, 1993[citation needed] as an edition of Windows NT 3.1, an operating system aimed towards business and server use. As with its Workstation counterpart, Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server was a 32 bit rewrite of the Windows kernel that retained a similar use interface to Windows 3.1. Unlike the latter, however, Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server was a complete operating system that did not need to be run from DOS. Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server, like its Workstation counterpart, featured new features such as multiuser support and preemptive multitasking.[3]In 1994, Microsoft released Windows NT Server 3.5. It introduced TCP/IP and Winsock support integrated into the operating system, alongside the ability to use FTP. It also supported VFAT.[citation needed]

In 1996, Microsoft released Windows NT Server 4.0. It added the new user interface introduced in Windows 95 the previous year. In addition, it dropped support for the PowerPC, Alpha, and MIPS architectures. Microsoft updated Winsock to version 2 and IIS 2.0 and FrontPage are included.[citation needed]

Traditionally, Microsoft supports Windows Server for 10 years, with five years of mainstream support and an additional five years of extended support. These releases also offer a complete desktop experience. Starting with Windows Server 2008, Server Core and Nano Server configurations were made available to reduce the OS footprint.[14][15] Between 2015 and 2021, Microsoft referred to these releases as "long-term support" releases to set them apart from semi-annual releases (see below.)

For sixteen years, Microsoft released a major version of Windows Server every four years, with one minor version released two years after a major release. The minor versions had an "R2" suffix in their names. In October 2018, Microsoft broke this tradition with the release of Windows Server 2019, which should have been "Windows Server 2016 R2". Windows Server 2022 is also a minor upgrade over its predecessor.[16][17]

Following the release of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft attempted to mirror the lifecycle of Windows 10 in the Windows Server family, releasing new versions twice a year which were supported for 18 months. These semi-annual versions were only available as part of Microsoft subscription services, including Software Assurance, Azure Marketplace, and Visual Studio subscriptions,[27] until their discontinuation in July 2021.[28][27]

The semi-annual releases do not include any desktop environments. Instead, they are restricted to the Nano Server configuration installed in a Docker container,[15][27] and the Server Core configuration, licensed only to serve as a container host.[15][27]

The Annual Channel was first announced on July 2023, with the first version being released on September the same year. Unlike the Semi-Annual releases, each Annual Channel release would receive six months of extended support in addition to the 18 months of regular support. Annual releases are made available every twelve months, hence the name. Datacenter is the only edition available.

"We are extending the depreciable useful life for server and network equipment assets in our cloud infrastructure from four to six years," chief financial officer Amy Hood told investors last week during Microsoft's Q4 2022 earnings call.

"Investments in our software that increased efficiencies in how we operate our server and network equipment as well as advances in technology have resulted in lives extending beyond historical accounting useful lives," she added.

Those investments will save Microsoft billions every year. Hood predicted the change will make a $3.7 billion difference to Microsoft's bottom line during FY 2023 alone, which is now underway, with a $1.1 billion benefit in Q1.

All of which may not be welcome news for Intel, AMD, and the manufacturers that kit out and build the millions of servers that big clouds consume. Extended hardware lifecycles mean some purchases will be deferred.

It's not all gloom for those suppliers, though. Last week Facebook and Google signaled they'd each spend billions on new servers to enable growth and catch up with purchases that were impossible during COVID-19-related supply chain messes.

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