Re: Windows Server R2 2012 End Of Life
Eden Alvardo
On January 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.
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.
Although the Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will soon reach their end of life, in our experience, many businesses across all sectors are likely still running legacy applications on these systems. These applications may be used in day-to-day business operations (potentially business critical), but are now facing the prospect of becoming untouchable once support ends.
You may find that legal and compliance standards stipulate that, in order to keep customers and clients safe, your operating systems must meet a minimum threshold. Such requirements will commonly reference the need for official vendor support, rendering end-of-life systems noncompliant.
While compliance obligations are certainly a driving force behind organisations opting to update applications and systems as end of life rolls around, for many, if there is no immediate requirement to do so, businesses regard the risk as one worth taking.
Should businesses opt to leave end of life Windows 2012 servers in place, compliance aside, they are opening themselves up to the threat of attackers who are aware of this vulnerability and looking to exploit its weaknesses.
With no more security fixes released, end of life servers become a threat minefield, and traditional anti virus solutions alone are unable to provide sufficient protection against vulnerabilities which cannot be patched, which threat actors are quick to exploit.
In 2017 the WannaCry hack was able to infiltrate NHS devices via a weakness in a legacy network, infecting systems with ransomware. The hack impacted 200,000 PCs and cost the NHS a total of 92 million in lost appointments and subsequent remedial IT costs.
Although businesses may have legitimate reasons for seeking to continue use of end of life applications and devices (resource availability, budget limitations and interruptions to productivity being the main cited), as cyber attacks continue to develop in their sophistication and pace, the vulnerability of an unpatched, unsupported system should be considered the primary motivation in upgrading.
As we all know, enterprises are under attack from hackers. Administrators have to deploy operating systems in configurations that minimize attack vectors and apply security patches to maintain the latest code. It is a common best practice to take inventory of operating systems in order to see the status of support from Microsoft.
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