Windows Server 2025 is Generally Available (Updated)

Microsoft quietly revealed yesterday that it has completed the development of Windows Server 2025, its latest LTSC Server release. (Update: Since then, Microsoft has formally announced this release. –Paul)

“Windows Server 2025 is now generally available,” a November 1 update to the Windows Server 2025 release health page on Microsoft Learn notes. “It delivers security advancements and new hybrid cloud capabilities in a high performing, AI-capable platform. Windows Server 2025 is Microsoft’s latest Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release for Windows Server.”

Microsoft began discussing Windows Server 2025 last year, and it announced the official name back in January, after referring to it simply as Windows Server v.Next until then. It’s the successor to Windows Server 2022, which shipped about three years ago, and it will be supported by Microsoft through October 9, 2029. And it’s a major release that represents a major new investment in on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments.

Some of the major new features in this release include:

Client experience. With its new Desktop shell, Windows Server 2025 adopts the Windows 11 look and feel. It also supports other Windows 11 features, like Bluetooth mice and keyboards, 7z and TAR compression formats, NVMe SSD drives, the new Task Manager, Windows Terminal, and the Windows Package Manager (winget).

Live hotpatching and other Azure Arc integration improvements. The Azure Arc feature-on-demand is now installed by default so you can more easily add servers to Azure Arc in data centers, the edge, and multi-cloud environments. And with Azure Arc, Windows Server can use Live hotpatching to install many updates without requiring a reboot: Instead of 12 monthly updates, admins will only need to deal with 4 quarterly updates that require reboots.

Active Directory improvements. Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Domain Services (AD LDS) have received major updates with the first upgrade to the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database page size since Windows 2000, AD schema updates, AD object repair, and many other changes. Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) is now available for managing local admin accounts in AD.

Block cloning. As with Windows 11 version 24H2, Server 2025 supports Block cloning, which provides dramatic performance improvements for file copy operations when used with the ReFS file system. You can learn more here.

Hardware and software-level security improvements. Windows Server 2025 comes with over 350 preconfigured Windows security settings so you can align the system configuration with the best practices recommended by Microsoft and industry standards. It also supports Virtualization-based security (VBS) enclaves for isolating sensitive data in a secure partition in memory and cryptographic key protection.

Improved networking. There are improvements to SMB, a new Software Defined Networking (SDN) configuration that separates network and data control for more flexible network management, and Wi-Fi is now installed by default.

As with previous Windows Server versions, 2025 supports two installation options: Server Core, which includes the core OS components and supports all server roles without providing a GUI, and Server with Desktop Experience, which provides the full GUI. As with each Windows client release, Windows Server 2025 no longer includes some features from the past, including the IIS 6 management console, WordPad, the SMTP Server, and the Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine. Other features–Computer Browser, Network Load Balancing (NLB), NTLM, WMIC, WSUS, and many others–are deprecated and will be removed in a later release.

You can learn more about Windows Server 2025 at:

• Microsoft Learn: Windows Server Documentation

• Microsoft Learn: Get Started with Windows Server
• Microsoft Tech Community: Windows Server

Those interested in evaluating Windows Server 2025 can download a free ISO or VHD from the Microsoft Evaluation Center that will work for 180 days. You can also try Windows Server 2025 on Microsoft Azure.

Update: Microsoft has formally announced Windows Server 2025, providing more information about the new features. –Paul