I got to wondering when the end of life for support was coming for the free-to-download/use versions of Hyper-V would be. They are free, and there’s not much reason not to be either on the current or on the most recent edition.
I searched and found:
Of note:
- End of mainstream support for Hyper-V Server 2008 is 14th January, 2014. That’s 1 year earlier than Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
- Even though Hyper-V Server 2008 is still in mainstream support, it’s not supported by VMM 2012 SP1.
- In fact, Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RTM is also going out of mainstream support on the same date.
- I haven’t a clue when Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 goes out of mainstream or extended support. The note on that is … confusing:
Support ends 12 months after the next service pack releases or at the end of the product’s support lifecycle, whichever comes first. For more information, please see the service pack policy at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#ServicePackSupport.
I cannot assume that the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 end dates are the same as W2008 R2 SP1. As I’ve noted, the other dates don’t necessarily match up. I’m asking Microsoft about this and I’ll update if I get an answer.
Before you ask:
- Security updates will continue to the end of extended support
- Mainstream support for Hyper-V is important because you want to get hotfixes (bug fixes) and support for managing it from newer versions of tools.
The review note means that Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 will expire on the same dates as the original products dates for mainstream and extended support dates if no further service pack is being released for Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.
If a SP2 was to be released tomorrow the support dates for SP1 would expire in ~12 months.
The odd thing is that there isn’t a date in the Service Pack Support End Date on the RTM-version of Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. That date should be approximately 12 months after the date when SP1 was released.