Windows Server 2025 is officially generally available with some substantial changes for administrators including useful Active Directory Domain tweaks, plus the disappearance of some familiar friends including Wordpad.
The successor to Windows Server 2022 - which is available in Standard, Datacenter, and Datacenter:Azure editions - was rebranded as Windows Server 2025 in January 2025. Prior to this it was referred to as Windows Server vNext. For those who aren't yet on Server 2022, it is also possible to upgrade to '2025 from versions as far back as Windows Server 2012 R2.
In the "new features" column are enhancements to Active Directory Domain Services, including a bump to a 32k database page size - up from the 8k page size of the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database introduced in Windows 2000 - which will ease some Active Directory scalability restrictions.
Other changes include updates to networking, including Software Defined Networking (SDN) alterations, beefed up security for Server Message Block (SMB), and improvements around virtualization.
However, administrators must also take a moment to remember those features that are disappearing with Windows Server 2025. WordPad (Microsoft recommends Word or Notepad instead) and the venerable SMTP service are no more, and the IIS 6 management console was deprecated. The Windows PowerShell 2.0 engine was also removed, meaning admins will need to migrate to versions such from PowerShell 5 or later.
Features put on notice - or no longer being developed - include all versions of NTLM, the Computer Browser driver and service, and that favorite of administrators: VBScript.
Interestingly, Windows Server 2025 will work with almost any 64-bit processor, so long as it runs at at least 1.4 GHz and is compatible with the x64 instruction set. Other requirements include support for the POPCNT instruction and the SSE4.2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2) instruction set. Secure boot and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) "are only required for certain features."
Unsurprisingly, several known issues accompany the release, some of which might give administrators pause for thought. These vary from the trivial - some English text turning up during the installation process in non-English installations - to the potentially showstopping, including a "boot device inaccessible" error in some iSCSI environments and potential problems when running on servers with 256 or more logical processors.
You'd be unlucky if your org was damaged by the latter, however - administrators are generally a prudent breed and will likely take time to check out the new release before letting it near production workloads, even considering the enhancements on offer.
The previous version, Windows Server 2022, will remain in mainstream support until October 13, 2026. Windows Server 2025 has October 9, 2029, set as the end of its mainstream support and will receive extended support until October 10, 2034. ®
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