From: Long Li <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2026 1:33 PM > > > > From: Michael Kelley <[email protected]> > > > > Linux code for running as a Hyper-V guest includes special cases for > > running on > > Hyper-V in WS2012/2012R2 and Windows 8/8.1. These versions were initially > > released 14 years ago, and official support ended in 2023 (unless a customer > > has contracted for extended security updates). Given the release of > > subsequent > > versions with improved functionality, there's no need to continue to > > support the > > latest Linux kernels on these versions of Hyper-V. If someone is running > > Linux on > > one of these older Hyper-V versions and doesn't want to upgrade, they can > > continue to do so as presumably they don't want upgrade the Linux version > > either. > > This patch set has significant implication for customer running older Hyper-V > versions. > There are probably a large number out there.
I don't have any hard data one way or the other, but given their age and lack of support, I'm doubtful that there are a large number of customers running WS2012 or Windows 8 for any purpose. Even fewer would be using Hyper-V to run Linux guests. Of course, the Azure fleet was upgraded many years ago. Before submitting this patch set, I had an offline email thread with Wei Liu (Linux maintainer for Hyper-V code), and one of the Hyper-V dev leads, about removing the WS2012/Win8 Hyper-V support. Wei checked within Microsoft, and came back to me that it was OK to do this. Wei could give you the details offline. Perhaps there's internal data on lingering usage that informed that decision. FWIW, you may remember that I did something similar for Windows Server 2008/Win7 back in 2022. See [1]. To my knowledge, there was zero customer pushback from that removal. While WS2012 Hyper-V was certainly more feature capable than the original WS2008 Hyper-V, anyone who cares would have updated at least to WS2016 Hyper-V as a mature baseline. > > Is this clearly communicated to all the customers in the field? Is there a > link from official > Microsoft statements on support statement of this: > "they can continue to do so as presumably they don't want upgrade the Linux > version > either." > > Please point to the statement that they can't upgrade Linux. A link in the > commit > message will be helpful. The only external statements I'm aware of are the Microsoft Support Lifecycle calendars that show Windows 8 support ending Jan 12, 2016 when it was superseded by Windows 8.1, and then Windows 8.1 support ending Jan 10, 2023. For Windows Server 2012 and 2012R2, the end of support was Oct 10, 2023. Michael [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-hyperv/[email protected]/
