Windows Server 2025 will be available now as a Paid Hotpatching Subscription Starting July 1st

Microsoft has announced that hotpatching support for Windows Server 2025, a feature long requested by IT professionals, will become generally available as a subscription service starting July 1, 2025. This update marks a significant shift in how organizations can manage critical security and feature patches, minimizing downtime and improving operational efficiency for on-premises and multicloud deployments.

What Is Hotpatching?

Hotpatching is an advanced update mechanism that allows administrators to apply security and feature patches directly to the in-memory code of running processes without requiring a server reboot. Traditionally, Windows Server updates have meant planning for downtime-often during late-night or weekend maintenance windows-to avoid disrupting business operations. Hotpatching changes this paradigm, enabling most updates to be applied without interrupting services or requiring users to log off.

“Hotpatching can save significant time and ease the inconvenience of a traditional ‘Patch Tuesday,’” notes Microsoft’s Windows Server team.

Expanded Availability Beyond Azure

Previously, hotpatching was exclusive to Windows Server Datacenter: Azure Edition, where it has been used by Microsoft’s own Xbox team to dramatically reduce maintenance windows from weeks to days. Now, with Windows Server, Microsoft is extending this capability to on-premises and multicloud environments through Azure Arc. This means organizations running Windows Server 2025 Standard or Datacenter editions can take advantage of hotpatching, provided their servers are connected to Azure Arc.

Subscription Pricing and Requirements

With the general availability launch on July 1, 2025, hotpatching will become a paid service for non-Azure deployments. The subscription is priced at $1.50 per CPU core per month. For example, an organization with 100 servers, each with 32 cores, would pay $4,800 per month, or $57,600 annually, for the service.

Key requirements include:

1. Windows Server 2025 Standard or Datacenter Edition
2. Connection to Azure Arc
3. Subscription to the Hotpatch service

For those using Azure IaaS, Azure Local, or Azure Stack, hotpatching remains included at no extra cost with Windows Server Datacenter: Azure Edition.

Update Cycle: Fewer Reboots, Higher Uptime

The hotpatching service follows a quarterly update cycle:

1. Baseline Months (January, April, July, October): Servers receive a cumulative security update and require a reboot.
2. Intervening Months: Up to eight hotpatch updates per year are delivered, which do not require a reboot.

This approach reduces the number of mandatory reboots from twelve per year (one per month) to just four, significantly decreasing downtime and maintenance overhead.

Transition from Preview to Paid Service

Hotpatching for Windows Server 2025 has been available in preview, free of charge, since late 2024. Organizations currently enrolled in the preview must disenroll by June 30, 2025, if they do not wish to continue with the paid subscription. Otherwise, their subscription will begin automatically on July 1, 2025.

Why Hotpatching Matters

For industries where uptime is critical-such as finance, healthcare, retail, and SaaS-reducing downtime is not just a convenience but a business necessity. Hotpatching enables organizations to:

1. Maintain higher server availability.
2. Deploy security patches immediately, reducing vulnerability windows.
3. Streamline update orchestration, especially in large or distributed environments.

Microsoft’s move aligns Windows Server with similar offerings in the Linux and virtualization ecosystems, where live patching has become standard for mission-critical workloads.

What’s Next?

Microsoft encourages IT professionals to attend the Windows Server Summit 2025 for more information on hotpatching and other improvements. As organizations weigh the cost versus benefits, the new hotpatching subscription is poised to become a key tool for those seeking to maximize uptime and minimize operational risk.

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