As we continue to innovate, support for older Windows Server versions—including security updates—eventually comes to an end. In accordance with the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy, extended support for Windows Server 2016 will end on January 12, 2027.

Many customers are already upgrading to the latest version of Windows Server to take advantage of the newest innovations and modernize their IT environment. Windows Server 2025 stands as the most secure and cloud‑connected version ever—bringing cloud‑grade security, hotpatching, and centralized hybrid management to on‑premises environments.

However, we recognize that Windows Server often supports complex, business-critical applications, and some customers may need additional time to complete their modernization journey. To help protect these workloads during the transition, we are pleased to offer flexible options and benefits through Azure and the latest Windows Server releases.

Today, we are announcing Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2016.

Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2016 deliver an enhanced cloud experience through Azure Arc. Security updates are available through the Azure portal, providing a streamlined, customer-centric way to protect on-premises and multi-cloud environments. For customers who need to keep workloads on premises, Extended Security Updates enabled by Azure Arc provide additional Azure benefits, including licensing flexibility, Azure management capabilities, and advanced security features, while also unlocking flexible subscription billing for Windows Server 2016 workloads.

While this provides an option to continue running Windows Server 2016 to avoid any disruption to business-critical applications, this period also presents the opportunity to upgrade to Windows Server 2025 or consider migrating to Azure.

To get started with planning Windows Server 2016 end of support, please refer to the Extended Security Updates frequently asked questions for more information, and learn about the latest in Azure Migration and Modernization Program. For more information on the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy, see the Windows Server 2016 lifecycle page.

The post Planning ahead for Windows Server 2016 end of support appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

By mid-2026, we will be updating the domain controller default assumed supported encryption types. The assumed supported encryption types is applied to service accounts that do not have an explicit configuration defined. Secure Windows authentication does not require RC4; AES-SHA1 can be used across all supported Windows versions since it was introduced in Windows Server 2008. If existing RC4 use is not addressed before the default change is applied, authentication relying on the legacy algorithm will no longer function. This blog post helps IT professionals transitioning to AES-SHA1 encryption by offering steps to detect and address remaining RC4 usage.

For additional details on our Windows Update rollout strategy, check out this page on how to manage Kerberos KDC usage of RC4.

Detect RC4 usage with new tools

Aside from the Windows Update rollout of changes to domain controller default assumed supported encryption types, RC4 should be completely disabled in domain environments to maximize security. Legacy applications or interoperability with non-Windows devices may still necessitate the use of RC4, and such dependencies will need to be identified and addressed.

To support the identification of RC4 usage, we have enhanced existing information within the Security Event Log and developed new PowerShell auditing scripts. These enhancements are available in Windows Server versions 2019, 2022, and 2025.

New fields within existing Kerberos Events

The Security Event Log on Key Distribution Centers (KDC) logs when a client requests a ticket during authentication and when they request access to a specific service within the domain:

• 4768: A Kerberos authentication ticket (TGT) was requested
• 4769: A Kerberos service ticket was requested

New fields have been added to these events to capture all of the encryption algorithms supported by an account and to log the specific algorithm that was used during a ticket request. Using this information, you can now better identify:

• Authentication client devices that only support RC4
• Authentication target devices that only support RC4
• Accounts that don’t have AES-SHA1 keys provisioned, specifically for AES128-CTS-HMAC-SHA1-96 (AES128-SHA96) and AES256-CTS-HMAC-SHA1-96 (AES256-SHA96)

The first important, new field is called msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes. This field specifies the encryption algorithms that an account supports and is provided for both the client machine and the target service in a request. By default, this field should include both AES-SHA1 and RC4. If it does not include AES-SHA1, that indicates an account that we would expect to use RC4, which would need to be remediated.

The next new field, Available Keys, provides information on the encryption keys that have been created for an account in Active Directory. For most accounts in Windows, this should include RC4 and AES-SHA1 already. If this field contains RC4 but not AES-SHA1, it indicates an account that is not ready to use AES-SHA1 and that would need to be addressed.

The last important new field is the Session Encryption Type. This field contains the encryption algorithm that was used for a specific Kerberos request. Most events will indicate AES-SHA1 was used because that is the default behavior for Windows devices and accounts today. Filtering this event for RC4 will help identify potential problematic accounts and configurations.

New PowerShell scripts

Instead of manually reviewing the Security Event log on your domain controllers to find problematic RC4 usage via events 4768 and 4769, let’s introduce two new PowerShell scripts that are available to you on the Microsoft Kerberos-Crypto GitHub repository.

List-AccountKeys.ps1

Use this PowerShell script to query the Security Event Log for the new Available Keys field. The script enumerates the keys that are available for the accounts it finds from the event logs, as well as the following information:

• The time at which an event happened
• The account name
• The account type
• The account keys

PS C:\tools> .\List-AccountKeys.ps1

Time                  Name         Type Keys

—-                  —-         —- —-

1/21/2025 2:00:10 PM  LD1$      Machine {RC4, AES128-SHA96, AES256-SHA96, AES128-SHA256…}

1/21/2025 2:00:10 PM  AdminUser    User {RC4, AES128-SHA96, AES256-SHA96, AES128-SHA256…}

1/21/2025 6:50:34 PM  LD1$      Machine {RC4, AES128-SHA96, AES256-SHA96, AES128-SHA256…}

1/21/2025 6:50:34 PM  AdminUser    User {RC4, AES128-SHA96, AES256-SHA96, AES128-SHA256…}

1/21/2025 6:50:34 PM  LD1$      Machine {RC4, AES128-SHA96, AES256-SHA96, AES128-SHA256…}

In this case, the results show that there are AES128-SHA96 and AES256-SHA96 keys available for the accounts found in the logs, meaning these accounts will continue to work if RC4 is disabled.

Get-KerbEncryptionUsage.ps1

Use this PowerShell script to query the same events to see which encryption types Kerberos used within your environment. In this example, the requests used AES256-SHA96, which is a part of AES-SHA1.

PS C:\tools> .\Get-KerbEncryptionUsage.ps1

Time       : 1/21/2025 2:00:10 PM

Requestor  : ::1

Source     : AdminUser@CONTOSO.COM

Target     : LD1$

Type       : TGS

Ticket     : AES256-SHA96

SessionKey : AES256-SHA96

Time       : 1/21/2025 2:00:10 PM

Requestor  : 192.168.1.1

Source     : AdminUser

Target     : krbtgt

Type       : AS

Ticket     : AES256-SHA96

SessionKey : AES256-SHA96

With this script, you can try out additional filtering options on specific encryption algorithms. For example, use the RC4 filter to specifically find requests that used RC4:

PS C:\tools> .\Get-KerbEncryptionUsage.ps1 -Encryption RC4

You can also use security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, like Microsoft Sentinel, or built-in Windows event forwarding as described in So, you think you’re ready for enforcing AES for Kerberos? to query these logs.

Recommendations on RC4 usage scenarios

You’ve used the scripts and identified RC4 usage. Now what should you do?

Here are some common scenarios and recommended solutions. For deeper dives, see our official Detect and remediate RC4 usage in Kerberos documentation.

A user account only has RC4 keys

You used the List-AccountKeys.ps1 script and have identified a user or machine account that only has RC4 in the list of keys. To prepare this account to use AES-SHA1 instead of RC4, reset the account password. Resetting the password will automatically create AES128-SHA96 and AES256-SHA96 keys in Active Directory for the account.

A user account doesn’t show support for AES-SHA1

You queried the Security log and found an account where the msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes field does not include the AES-SHA1 encryption types. There are multiple reasons why this may be the case and the most common scenarios are outlined below:

Scenario 1: The source or target account for a request might not have AES128-SHA96 and AES256-SHA96 correctly configured in its supported encryption types. If this is the case, here’s how you can view the policy:

• You can use Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) with Advanced Features enabled (under View > Advanced features). Review the msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute for an account to confirm the configuration. Find the account of interest in ADUC and right-click the account name. Select Properties and, in the newly opened window, select the Attribute Editor tab. In the list of attributes, find msDS-SupportedEncryption to confirm the configuration of the account. If needed, configure the account to include AES128-SHA96 and AES256-SHA96 using Group Policy.

• You can also use PowerShell. Use the following Get-ADObject command. Note: The output for mdds-SupportedEncryptionTypes will be in decimal format.

PS C:\> Get-ADObject -Filter “Name -eq ‘LM1’ -and (ObjectClass -eq ‘Computer’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘User’)”  -Properties “msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes”

DistinguishedName             : CN=LM1,CN=Computers,DC=contoso,DC=com

msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes : 28

Name                          : LM1

ObjectClass                   : computer

ObjectGUID                    : 3a4c6bc4-1a44-4f1f-b74a-02ec4a931947

To interpret the values and to determine the best configuration for your environment, check out Active Directory Hardening Series – Part 4 – Enforcing AES for Kerberos and Decrypting the Selection of Supported Kerberos Encryption Types.

After setting the right combination for your environment, restart the device, and it will update its msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes attributes in the active directory database.

Scenario 2: The source or the target machine might not have the msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes defined in AD and is falling back to the default supported encryption types.

You’ll need to have a more holistic understanding of your environment. Do you know what happens to devices that don’t have a value defined for msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes or the value is set to 0? Normally, these devices will automatically receive the value of DefaultDomainSupportEncTypes. Depending on your individual risk tolerance, consider using one of the following methods to address this scenario:

• Define the specific msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes value in the account properties to ensure it isn’t falling back to the DefaultDomainSupportedEncTypes.
• Set the DefaultDomainSupportedEncTypes to include AES128-SHA1 and AES256-SHA1. Note: This will change the behavior of all accounts that don’t have a value for msds-SupportedEncryptionTypes.

The device doesn’t support AES128-SHA96 or AES256-SHA96

The last version of Windows devices that did not support AES128-SHA96 and AES256-SHA96 was Windows Server 2003. We strongly recommend that you migrate to a supported version of Windows as soon as possible.

If you have a third-party device that does not support AES128-SHA1 and AES256-SHA1, we want to hear from you! Please reach out to stillneedrc4@microsoft.com telling us:

• What is this device?
• How does it fit into your workflow?
• What is your timeline for upgrading this device?

Using WAC for configuring allowed encryption types

Microsoft provides a security baseline for Windows Server 2025 to set and audit recommended security configurations. This baseline includes disabling RC4 as an allowed encryption type for Kerberos. You can apply security baselines or view compliance using PowerShell or using the Windows Admin Center.

In Windows Admin Center, you can access the security baseline compliance report by connecting to the server you’ve configured using OSConfig by selecting the Security Baseline tab of the Security blade. In the Security Baselines tab, you can filter for the policy “Network Security: Configure encryption types allowed for Kerberos” to see your current compliance state for allowed encryption types. The compliant values for this policy in the baseline that do not allow RC4 are:

• 2147483624: AES128-SHA96 + Future Encryption types
• 2147483632: AES256-SHA96 + Future Encryption types
• 2147483640: AES128-SHA96 + AES256-SHA96 + Future Encryption

This is an example of the audit report indicating a device with a compliant setting:

This is an example of audit showing devices configured with a setting that is different from the previous compliant values:

Using stronger ciphers

In the current security landscape, RC4 isn’t required to ensure secure Windows authentication. You can use stronger ciphers, like AES-SHA1, for authentication among all supported versions of Windows. We hope that these detection and mitigation tools help you and your organization in your hardening efforts. Please check out official Detect and remediate RC4 usage in Kerberos documentation for more details and scenarios.

The post Beyond RC4 for Windows authentication appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Windows Server 2025

Download the public preview to try these exciting new features.

Start here

Advanced security

With a growing number of cyber security threats and the impact of incidents escalating quickly, security is a top priority for our customers. Windows Server 2025 includes a rich set of security innovations, including:

• Modern, scalable identity management with new security capabilities in Active Directory.
• Server Message Block (SMB) improvements including SMB over QUIC and features to help protect against brute force attacks, spoofing, and relay attacks.
• Security updates with fewer reboots, made possible through Azure Arc-enabled hotpatching, new security capabilities in Active Directory, and SMB hardening.

Hybrid innovation

We’re continuing to hear from our customers that the majority of their organizations work in a hybrid or multicloud state. In fact, a recent survey we conducted revealed that 81% of current hybrid cloud customers expect to remain hybrid for another five years.² Now, you can innovate and govern anywhere, as Windows Server 2025 delivers improved hybrid cloud capabilities such as:

• Software-defined network (SDN) multisite features allow for native L2 and L3 connectivity for workloads in multiple locations, and the ease of unified network policy management.
• Flexible hybrid and multicloud management tools that bring Azure capabilities to your datacenter through Azure Arc.
• If you want to use Azure hybrid capabilities but haven’t started yet, Windows Server 2025 has features that allow easier onboarding to Azure Arc.

AI, performance, and scale

Are you curious about how your organization can do more with AI? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Azure hosts some of the world’s largest workloads that push the limits of CPU and memory capabilities to process huge data sets across distributed environments. With the growth of AI and machine learning, GPUs have become a key part of cloud solutions because they’re great at performing many parallel operations on large data. Windows Server 2025 brings you many of these advantages across GPUs, storage, networking, and scalability. New features include:

• GPU partitioning across virtual machines with live migration and failover clustering; built to support AI workloads and inferencing at the edge.
• Reductions in the time you spend on network setup and issue remediation with new Network Adaptive Traffic Control (ATC) and Network Health and Usage Dashboard (HUD) features.
• Massive increases in storage performance and vastly improved Hyper-V performance and scalability.³
• Easy upgrades through Windows Update.

What we’ve provided above is just a quick overview of our top improvement areas for Windows Server 2025. For more details, we encourage you to read more on Microsoft Learn and watch our 2024 Windows Server Summit on demand.

Windows Server customers on the leading edge

While Windows Server 2025 is only coming into its public preview now, we’d like to share just a few inspiring customer stories you might have missed, to help you plot the journey ahead:

• CTT – Correios de Portugal: Learn how an organization that’s been around since 1520 gets ready for AI.

• Hokkoku Bank: This bank laid the initial groundwork for modernization by moving its entire on-premises estate to Windows Server. This created a seamless path to full cloud transformation on Microsoft Azure.

• DICK’s Sporting Goods: This Windows Server customer created an omnichannel athlete experience using Azure Arc and Azure Kubernetes Service.

System Center 2025

We’re also excited to announce the launch of System Center 2025, a leap forward in infrastructure management, enabling you to make the most of the Windows Server 2025 features from “day 0”. Advanced security focus continues to be a theme for System Center 2025 as well, featuring Azure Key Vault integration and reduced NTLM and Credential Security Support Provider protocol (CredSSP) usage. For hybrid innovation, onboarding machines in your System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) managed datacenters to Azure Arc is simplified with Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM. In addition to at-scale Arc onboarding, it also enables you to manage the lifecycle of the machines in your datacenter in a self-service fashion from Azure. 

Try out the new Windows Server 2025 preview

Today we’ve shared some of the new features and capabilities of Windows Server 2025. They’re the outcome of more than 30 years of working on, refining, and updating the Windows Server platform based on input from dedicated professionals like you. Thank you for being a valuable Windows Server customer and, through your passion and feedback, helping us shape this new release. For more details, read this Windows Server documentation, watch our Windows Server Summit sessions, or check out the “What’s ahead for Windows 2025” video.

Download the Windows Server 2025 preview.

¹This information relates to a prerelease product that may be substantially modified before it’s released. Microsoft makes no warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to the information provided here.

²Based on a 2023 Microsoft survey of Windows Server customers using hybrid cloud in their organization. N=197.

³Up to 70% more IOPs on NVMe SSDs; Windows Server 2025 Hyper-V Virtual Machine Maximums: Maximum Memory per VM: 240 Terabytes* (10x previous) ; Maximum Virtual Processors per VM: 2048 VPs* (~8.5x previous) *Requires Generation 2 VMs ; Windows Server 2025 Host Memory Maximums: 4 Petabytes for hosts that support 5 level paging (166x previous) ; 256 Terabytes for hosts that support 4 level paging (10x previous) 

The post Gain enhanced security and performance with Windows Server 2025—now in preview appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

We’re excited to invite you to the fourth annual Windows Server Summit digital event, happening on December 6, 2022, at 9:00 AM Pacific Time. This has been a popular digital event among our Windows Server community, attracting thousands of IT managers, chief technical officers, systems administrators, cloud architects, and other IT professionals from organizations of all sizes. We know your time is precious, so here’s a quick preview of what’s in the event for you, and why you should join us:

More demos, fewer slides

Your feedback has been heard. In past events, you’ve expressed interest in seeing features in action, rather than just hearing us talk about them. In this event, you’ll experience clear, step-by-step walk-throughs of Windows Server 2022, Windows Admin Center, and Azure Arc as well as new products like Azure Automanage.

Focus on the practical, while looking ahead to what’s possible

In each of our sessions, we have tried to stay grounded in the practical challenges you need to manage today, like keeping your IT environment secure, giving your team better capabilities for working remotely, managing your IT estate, and determining what to do next with older technology, like Windows Server 2012 (reaching end of support October 10, 2023). In addition to these essential topics, we’re excited to offer a few sneak peeks at what is coming next and share with you ways to migrate and modernize to take advantage of Azure capabilities.

Hear from Microsoft experts and get your questions answered

Attendees of the December 6 event will have a chance to get their questions answered by Windows Server and Azure experts through live chat. You’ll hear from Roanne Sones, Corporate Vice President of Azure Edge and Platform on her vision for Windows Server and hybrid cloud. Of course, we have sessions led by familiar Microsoft personalities including Jeff Woolsey, Sonia Cuff, Rick Claus, Ned Pyle, Thomas Maurer, and the list goes on.

Learn more

If you want to learn with the Windows Server community, or just want more information about Windows Server 2022, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Arc, or cloud migration, please sign up for the Windows Server Summit to join us.

Windows Server Summit

Learn new opportunities to innovate and operate more efficiently.

Register now

The post Join us for Windows Server Summit 2022 appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of System Center 2022, which includes System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), System Center Orchestrator (SCORCH), Service Manager (SM), and Data Protection Manager (DPM). With this release, we are continuing to bring new capabilities for best-in-class datacenter management across diverse IT environments that could be comprised of Windows Server, Azure Stack HCI, or VMWare deployments. We have been energized to hear of organizations such as Olympia, Schaeffler, and Entain who have validated the capabilities of System Center 2022 during the preview. Now, let us dive into what is new with System Center 2022.

Why upgrade to System Center 2022

Best-in-class datacenter management

Your IT environments are ever-evolving to have applications running on a diverse set of hardware. Your workforce is spread across multiple locations and remote management is the new normal. System Center 2022 focuses on simplifying collaboration and providing consistent control for all your environments.

Enhanced access control capabilities in SCOM facilitate simpler management of permissions on the monitoring data and alert actions. A critical piece toward adoption of DevOps practices, empowering the users with the right level of control. The integration with Microsoft Teams and management of alert closures reduce the circle time between the application owners and the SCOM administrator. The developers can get notified about alerts for their applications on the Teams channels.

Additionally, to meet the needs of growing environments, you can now assign both IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses to the software-defined networking (SDN) deployments with VMM. Performance and technology optimizations to the data protection manager mean you get more control and speed on the backups and restores.

Overall, this release gives you more control in managing the environment and working with the DevOps teams.

Flexible infrastructure platform

Datacenters are becoming more heterogeneous, with multiple host platforms and hypervisors, Windows/Linux, VMware, and Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI). System Center 2022 enables the unification of management practices for the datacenter, irrespective of the platform in use.

System Center 2022 is the best toolset to manage your Windows Server 2022 and SQL Server infrastructure. This includes using Windows Server 2022 for the management infrastructure and managing the Windows Server 2022 based environment. In addition to a comprehensive management experience for Windows Server 2022 workloads, this release of System Center adds support for managing Azure Stack HCI 21H2, VMware 7.0 hosts, and the latest Linux distros. You can create, configure, and register HCI 21H2 clusters, control virtual machines on the HCI clusters, set up SDN controllers, and manage storage pools from VMM. There are new management packs in SCOM for monitoring the Azure Stack HCI clusters. To protect the virtual machines on Stack HCI clusters, Microsoft Azure Backup Server can now be used.

Hybrid management with Azure

Efficiently managing IT resources that are sprawled across various locations without slowing down developer innovation is a key challenge that IT leaders face today. Azure Arc enables you to seamlessly govern, manage, and secure Windows and Linux servers, Kubernetes clusters, and applications across on-premises, multiple clouds, and the edge from a single control plane.

We will be bringing hybrid capabilities with System Center 2022 to standardize management and governance across on-premises and cloud environments while reusing your existing investments in System Center.

Stay tuned for more on these exciting capabilities!

Get started with System Center 2022

• Get started at the Evaluation Center, or get it directly from the Volume Licensing Service Center.
• Learn more by going to:
  • Product page.
  • Technical documentation.
  • System Center Tech Community.

The post System Center 2022 is now generally available appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

We want to continue to invest in your organizations’ success and enable you to get the most out of Windows Server by keeping you informed of the latest product announcements, news, and overall best practices. Here are the top five to-do’s for you to make the most out of Windows Server:

1. Patch and install security updates without rebooting with Hotpatch

Hotpatch is now generally available. As part of Azure Automanage for Windows Server, this capability allows you to keep your Windows Server virtual machines on Azure up-to-date without rebooting, enabling higher availability with faster and more secure delivery of updates. Other capabilities that are part of Azure Automanage for Windows Server include SMB over QUIC, as well as extended network for Azure, which lets you keep your on-premises IP addresses when you migrate to Azure. Learn more about why Azure is the best destination for Windows Server.

2. Take the recently available Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Certification

Invest in your career and skills with this brand-new Windows Server certification. With this certification, you can keep the Windows Server knowledge you have built your career on and learn how to apply it in the current state of hybrid cloud computing. Earn this certification for managing, monitoring, and securing applications on-premises, in Azure, and at the edge. Learn more about Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate certification today.

3. Upgrade to Windows Server 2022

With Windows Server 2022, get the latest innovation for you to continue running your workloads securely, enable new hybrid cloud scenarios, and modernize applications to meet your ever-evolving business requirements. Learn more about investing in your success with Windows Server.

4. Protect your workloads by taking advantage of free extended security updates (ESUs) in Azure

While many customers have adopted Windows Server 2022, we also understand that some need more time to modernize as support for older versions of Windows Server will eventually end.

• For Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 customers, the end of support date is October 10, 2023. 
• For Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 customers, the third year of extended security updates are coming to an end on January 10, 2023. Customers can get an additional fourth year of free extended security updates (ESUs-only) on Azure (including Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, and other Azure products). With this, customers will have until January 9, 2024 for Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 to upgrade to a supported release.

We are committed to supporting you as you start planning for end of support if you are running workloads on older versions of Windows Server. Learn more about end of support deadlines for Windows Server 2008/R2 and 2012/R2 and your options.

5. Combine extended security updates with Azure Hybrid Benefit to save even more

In addition to all the innovative Windows Server capabilities available only on Azure, it also has offers for you to start migrating your workloads with Azure Hybrid Benefit. It is a licensing benefit that allows you to save even more by using existing Windows Server licenses on Azure. Learn more about how much you can save with Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Ask questions and engage in our community

Get started implementing these Windows Server best practices today! Join the conversation by sharing stories or questions you have here:  

• Windows Server Tech Community.
• @windowsserver on Twitter.

¹_{Note: In alignment with the servicing model for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 (link to blog), the Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 ESU program will only include Monthly Rollup packages; Security Only update packages will not be provided.}

The post Get the most out of Windows Server with these 5 best practices appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Today, we are announcing new updates to Azure Automanage machine best practices and Azure Automanage for Windows Server that allow IT admins and DevOps professionals to simplify and optimize IT management with automated operations.

Azure Automanage machine best practices

Azure Automanage machine best practices is a unique capability on Azure that allows you to optimize IT management with automated operations. It simplifies the steps to discover, onboard, and configure certain services in Azure that would benefit your virtual machines.

• Custom configuration profiles: Custom configuration profiles in both Windows Server and Linux virtual machines is now available in preview. This new capability allows you to select the Azure services, including Azure Backup, Azure Security Center, and Azure Monitor to name a few—that fit your unique needs.
• Support for Azure Arc-enabled servers: The integration with Azure Arc allows you to automate frequent, time-consuming management tasks for Azure and on-premises workloads by applying the Automanage service to your on-premises Windows Server and Linux virtual machines. With Azure Arc, you can see your Azure and non-Azure servers side-by-side in the Azure portal with Azure Arc—now available in preview.

Azure Automanage for Windows Server

Along with helping automate tasks, Automanage for Windows Server can also enable differentiated innovation for your virtual machines on Azure.

• Hotpatch: With many organizations moving to a zero-trust security model, you can now deploy security updates without having to reboot your Windows Server virtual machine. Hotpatching reduces the need to schedule security updates because you can deploy updates as soon as they become available.
• Securely access file servers: Another challenge has been securely accessing file servers remotely over an untrusted network and without a VPN when you’re on a mobile device or working remotely. Now, generally available—SMB over QUIC. SMB over QUIC introduces an alternative to the TCP network transport, providing secure, reliable connectivity to edge file servers over untrusted networks like the internet.
• Preserve on-premises IP addresses: Lastly, when you migrate to Azure, there are some virtual machines that cannot change their IP address. Now generally available is an extended network for Azure, which allows you to migrate Windows Server workloads to Azure while preserving the original IP address.

For customers who have moved Windows Server to Azure, you can take advantage of Azure Hybrid Benefit and free Extended Security Updates only on Azure. To get started with planning Windows Server 2012 and 2012 end of support, please read our end-of-support blog for additional guidance, you can also refer to our Extended Security Updates frequently asked questions.

Follow along at Microsoft Ignite

Watch our sessions on Azure Automanage and Windows Admin Center:

• Microsoft Into Focus: Infrastructure
• Simplify IT server management through Azure Automanage
• What’s new in Windows Admin Center

Get started with Azure Automanage and Windows Server 2022

Azure Automanage has some new capabilities:

• Read our deep-dive about these features on the Tech Community blog.
• Get started with Automanage best practices.
• Learn more about Azure Automanage for Windows Server.

Windows Server 2022 includes a broad set of capabilities—here are top ways to get started:

• Windows Server Evaluation Center offers options to try Windows Server in Azure or to download.
• Windows Server on Azure Marketplace for running Virtual Machines on Azure.
• Learn about the latest capabilities in Windows Admin Center.

The post 5 new capabilities to automate Windows Server management with Azure Automanage appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Take advantage of this opportunity to get your questions answered during live Q&A by engaging with product managers that represent Windows Server and all these Azure services.

A closer look at session details

Session and speaker	Description
Windows Server Summit Kickoff Bernardo Caldas Vice President of Program Management, Azure Core OS, and Edge Infrastructure	Tune in for a kickoff with Bernardo Caldas (Vice President of Program Management, Azure Core OS, and Edge Infrastructure) and Arpan Shah (General Manager, Azure) who will talk about the latest innovation for Windows Server and share some exciting announcements.
What’s new with Windows Server 2022 Jeff Woolsey Principal Program Manager, Windows Server	Join Jeff Woolsey and deep dive into the latest capabilities of what makes Windows Server 2022 an exciting platform for IT pros and developers. Learn how you can apply these capabilities to your applications and data in the cloud, on-premises, and at the edge.
Windows Server 2022 and Hybrid Cloud with Azure Arc Ryan Willis Senior Program Manager, Azure Arc	Azure is the world’s computer. It’s built with enterprise-scale in mind and all the services you need to manage updates, collect and analyze logs, audit and enforce policy, and secure your servers. For workloads not moving to Azure, learn how to bring Azure innovation to your on-premises and multicloud servers with Azure Arc.
Windows Server 2022 and Hybrid Cloud with Azure Stack HCI Cosmos Darwin Principal PM Manager	Azure Stack HCI is a new hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) operating system delivered as an Azure service that provides the latest security, performance, and feature updates. Learn how to deploy and run Windows Server 2022 on Azure Stack HCI to modernize your datacenter while using your existing tools, processes, and skillsets.
Simplify IT management with Azure innovation for Windows Server 2022 Meagan McCrory Senior Program Manager	Azure Automanage can help you save time and resources for your Windows Server workloads. Discover how different services can help manage servers and see how Azure Automanage helps you easily discover and utilize premier Windows Server 2022 capabilities.
Increase developer velocity with Windows containers and Kubernetes Olaseni Adeniji Program Manager	Companies are rapidly modernizing their applications with containers and microservices. Learn about tools and platform capabilities that can help modernize your traditional Windows Server applications and implement a differentiated container solution for your Windows host.
Modernize server management with System Center and Windows Admin Center Srividya Varanasi Senior Program Manager Prasidh Arora Program Manager, Windows Server	Microsoft is evolving server management with System Center and Windows Admin Center. Learn how you can use System Center to manage datacenters at scale and how you can use Windows Admin Center to perform granular and optimized server management. We will share new and future capabilities that enable you to achieve a singular management plane across your on-premises estate.

We look forward to having you join us at the Windows Server Summit on September 16, 2021!

The post Get a first look at Windows Server 2022—register for the free Windows Server Summit appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Since we announced the availability of the Windows Server 2022 preview on Insiders, thousands of customers have downloaded or tried it on Azure, and we received lots of helpful feedback. Many customers have indicated that they would like to start validating the new Windows Server 2022 release sooner. As a result, we decided to make the Windows Server 2022 preview also available on Azure.

We are happy to share that the preview of Windows Server is now available on the Evaluation Center and our partners and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) ecosystem can access it for validation.  Whether you are planning to implement Windows Server in Azure, in your datacenter, or through a Microsoft partner, we encourage you to try this preview and leverage the innovation we have included in Windows Server 2022.

More importantly, customers with Software Assurance (SA) get more from their existing Windows Server deployments and have upgrade rights to the latest release. That way they can begin taking advantage of all that is best of breed in Windows Server 2022. Additionally, if they’re thinking about moving workloads to the cloud, SA also gets them access to Azure Hybrid Benefit where they can bring Windows Server and SQL Server on-premises licenses to Azure. We would like to encourage customers to take advantage of the current preview to accelerate deployments in their environments when Windows Server 2022 is generally available later this calendar year.

Note that we do not recommend deploying the Windows Sever 2022 preview for production workloads. Secondly, all Insider’s customers can use Windows Server 2022 and access it on the Evaluation Center.

If you’d like to learn more about Windows Server 2022, we have you covered

• Register for the upcoming webinar, Maximize Your Windows Server Hybrid Strategy with Azure, Thursday, June 10, 2021, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
• Secondly, join us for an upcoming Ask Microsoft Anything for all your Windows Server questions on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Pacific Time.

The post Windows Server 2022 is now in preview on the Evaluation Center appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.

Windows Admin Center, your favorite server management tool, is now available in preview in Azure. This new capability enables seamless and granular management of your Windows Server Azure IaaS virtual machines (VMs) from within the Azure portal.

Here is a short video highlighting some of the capabilities included with Windows Admin Center in the Azure portal.

Get the job done with simplicity and convenience

Windows Admin Center in Azure unlocks incredible capabilities for the Azure portal by providing you with an interface to manage your Windows Server virtual machines. By default, the Azure portal provides a singular view for virtual machine management and the essential elements to manage your infrastructure. With the addition of Windows Admin Center, we have supplemented this great management experience with additional opportunities such as an enhanced view of virtual machine usage, performance monitoring, viewing of events, and much more. We expect this to reduce the need for you to remote desktop into your virtual machine for administration improving your experience as you deploy and maintain virtual machines with or without a GUI.

Familiar UI

You can now configure, troubleshoot, and perform maintenance tasks with the same Windows Admin Center UI that you know and love. Beyond a consistent interface, you can manage your files, view expired certificates, monitor performance, view critical events, use PowerShell, use an in-browser RDP session, and much more without leaving the Azure portal. We now provide cloud capabilities that were once only available to Windows Admin Center users on-premises.

Designed for the cloud

While the Windows Admin Center you see in the Azure portal is familiar and has most of the same functionality our Windows Server customers love and use, it is tailored to provide a cloud-first experience. This version of Windows Admin Center was created to focus more on the cloud experience when running IaaS virtual machines in Azure, and we are continuously adding new capabilities to improve the experience for our customers. In the Azure portal, Windows Admin Center is always kept up to date, seamlessly giving you the latest and greatest features. In addition, Windows Admin Center is backed by the support infrastructure that provides reliability for all your other Azure services. You now have a great way to manage your Windows Server virtual machines in Azure.

Secure

Windows Admin Center in the Azure portal also helps you manage security. It features an integrated certificate experience that provides a secure connection supporting both public and private IP addresses. The experience automates the provisioning and managing of a certificate for your instance of Windows Admin Center by using existing Azure services.

Getting started

Windows Admin Center in the Azure portal is available to all Windows Server customers on Azure running Windows Server 2016 or higher virtual machines in the public cloud. Create a new virtual machine today or deploy Windows Admin Center on your existing infrastructure. You can begin managing your virtual machines in Azure using Windows Admin Center by navigating to the “Windows Admin Center (preview)” blade under “Settings” in the Virtual Machine Azure portal UI.

Learn more

New to Windows Admin Center? Check out this introduction video.

Interested in on-premises Windows Admin Center? Read our documentation.

Learn more about Windows Admin Center v2103.

The post Announcing public preview of Windows Admin Center in the Azure portal appeared first on Microsoft Windows Server Blog.