Extended support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will end in early October of this year. Microsoft discontinued general support for Windows Server 2012 in October 2018; the company offered five years of extended support to allow users ample time to migrate to newer, supported versions of Windows Server.
Note
- Keep track of the end of live / end of support of critical software and hardware, and create life cycle management to anticipate it. In January, Windows 8.1 will reach end of support, and Windows 7 will reach the end of the extended security support. InFebruary, Google Chrome will stop supporting any Windows version prior to Windows 10. At this point, you really should only have Windows 10 or Windows 11 running on Windows workstations.
- The good news is that Windows Server 2012 market share seems to be in the .5% range, the bad news is that still means more than 2,000 businesses have it running somewhere. Paying for extended support for 10-year-old versions of operating systems is always going to be more expensive than migrating to current supported version.
- With the possible exception of OT systems, you should be well off Server 2012, ideally finalizing your standard configuration for server 2022 and working to replace Server 2016. Yes, you can get extended security updates as far out as October 2026 and ask yourself should you be running an OS released October of 2012, in October 2026. Not just for security challenges over that 14-year period, but also changes in technology which are not going to be available on that platform.
- Of the roughly 2000 such systems, one wonders how many are actually paying for extended support and how many are running naked.
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