Operating Windows Server securely without monthly reboots – that’s the promise of hotpatching. The preview of this can now be tested.

Microsoft has introduced the hotpatching feature for Windows Server 2025, enabling updates to be applied while the server remains operational, without necessitating a restart. This capability is now available for trial in the public preview of the new server.

In a blog post, Microsoft’s development team mentions that the hotpatching feature is included in both the standard and data center editions of Windows Server 2025. Described by Microsoft as a “game changer,” this feature is expected to simplify change management, reduce the duration of patch applications, and ease orchestration efforts. The team humorously notes, “And you could finally see your family at weekends.”

Although this might sound overly optimistic, Microsoft provides a clear explanation of hotpatching. It involves updating the operating system without a reboot by directly modifying the code of active processes in memory, eliminating the need to restart those processes.

This brings advantages such as less workload due to fewer reboots. Instead of twelve required reboots per year on “patch tuesdays”, scheduled reboots will take place quarterly in future. However, there is the rare possibility that a reboot is required in a nominal hot patch month. Fewer binary files also mean that updates download and install faster and require less memory and processor resources. Orchestration is simplified, as is change control. Hot patching is integrated into the optional Azure Update Manager.

Hotpatching can be activated in Windows Server 2025 Datacenter and the Standard Edition with just a few clicks. Interested parties can roll out the “Hotpatch (preview)” function with the Azure Arc agent, which is integrated in the Windows Server 2025 preview.

Hotpatching has been available in the Windows Server 2022 Datacenter Azure Edition for several years, Microsoft explains. Previously, it was necessary to use Windows Server 2022 Azure Edition and run a virtual machine (VM) in Azure or Azure Stack HCI. As soon as Windows Server 2025 is released, it will allow you to use the server edition you want and also where you want it to run – On-premise in your own data center, in the Azure cloud or elsewhere. Hotpatching is possible on physical servers as well as in the VM, which in turn can run in Hyper-V, VMware or software that supports Microsoft’s Virtualization Based Security.

This is tested and “real” technology. The real change is how and where these security updates come from. Hotpatching will be made available as an option in Azure Arc. Azure Arc is used for administration and allows Windows Server’s internal licensing service to run so that hot patch updates are delivered to customers.

At the end of January, it was already leaked that Microsoft was working on a Windows Server 2025 that would also run on-premise again. However, all signs point in the direction of the cloud. Yesterday, Monday, September 23, it was announced that Microsoft will be retiring WSUS. In the longer term, however, Microsoft clearly wants to replace local installations with the Windows Cloud PC and the server images in Azure.

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This article was originally published in

German.

It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.

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