Gain enhanced security and performance with Windows Server 2025—now in preview
We are excited to announce that Windows Server 2025 is available in public preview and ready for you to download in the Evaluation Center.
This blog was co-authored by Ben Schultz, Principal Program Manager and Weijuan Shi Davis, Senior Program Manager, Windows Server.
Greetings!
With the launch of Windows Server 2019 a few months ago, we kicked off a whole new wave of innovation focused on four pillars: Hybrid Cloud, Security, Application Platform, and Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, and it was just the beginning. Today, we’re excited to share with you a few feature areas of the next Windows Server, Semi-Annual Channel release – version 1903.
For version 1903, we’re focusing on App Platform, edge computing, Windows Admin Center, and App Compatibility.
In this release period, we’ll bring innovation in fundamentals and platform capabilities, closely working with the broader ecosystem to ensure compatibility. Some of the new capabilities will be available with this release, while others will be available through other channels including Azure and our ecosystem partners.
Windows Server, version 1903 will continue to serve as an application platform for customers who are modernizing their applications on-premises or in the cloud with Windows containers.
Note: If you are using the Windows Server, version 1903 Insider Build on Azure, please note the build number is 18342. To ensure that you can run a Windows Server container on that build, use a Windows Server container build the same or lower than 18342. For example, you can run:
“docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore/insider:10.0.18342.1”
OR
“docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore/insider:10.0.18323.1000”
This practice of ensuring version compatibility applies to any Windows Server containers you may run, not just the case here. Please check the docs on Windows container version compatibility for more details.
As more applications, workloads, and services move to the cloud, certain edge computing scenarios are emerging where the logic is best suited to run locally rather than in the cloud. Applications that use Internet of Things (IoT) provide one example, and additional scenarios include data normalization, data analysis, and device control.
System Insights is a local predictive analytics feature introduced in Windows Server 2019. The System Insights predictive capabilities, each backed by a machine learning or analytics model, analyze Windows Server system data, such as performance counters and events. These capabilities provide insight into server operations, helping reduce the operational expenses associated with reactively managing deployment issues.
With the upcoming April Windows Admin Center (WAC) release, you can use the System Insights WAC extension to find, install, and update new System Insights capabilities. Coming shortly after the April WAC release, we will publish a new capability that allows you to detect anomalies in physical disk metrics. You can download this new capability entirely through WAC without updating your OS. This capability will work on both Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server, version 1903. With this capability, you can avoid setting static thresholds that require prior knowledge of expected behavior, and instead depend on this capability to automatically detect abnormal behavior in your physical disk metrics. In the future, we plan to extend these capabilities, improving the information you can leverage to best administrate your servers and infrastructure.
Hybrid cloud makes it easier to run IT operations locally while still maximizing the benefits of the cloud. This includes easier distribution of data, monitoring infrastructure, and ease of deploying new apps. To improve the experience across cloud and on-premises, version 1903 brings the following innovations:
The App Compatibility Feature on Demand for Server Core, introduced with Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server, version 1809, continues to be popular with customers using it in a variety of scenarios. Feedback since launch has led to two significant additions:
A reminder that Server Core is the recommended server OS installation type for production (managed by Windows Admin Center and/or Powershell). The App Compatibility FOD is intended for those specific workloads or enterprise apps that require more than what Server Core alone provides. This helps IT environments to standardize on Server Core.
Reminder: Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel is designed for faster innovation.
Windows Server, version 1903 Insider Builds
Windows Server, Version 1903 Container Insider Builds
Windows Admin Center 1904 is now generally available. Easily manage your server instances and optionally enable various Azure services to light up hybrid scenarios.
All Insider previews are available for registered Insiders only. Need to register? See the Getting Started with Windows Server Insider Preview page for more information.
Attend our Windows Server Summit virtual event on May 22, 2019 to hear more on what’s to come from our Windows Server Team.