MICROSOFT SUPPORT LIFECYCLE BLOG : Mainstream Support phase

Windows Server 2008 ships with SP1? Whatever happened to Windows Server 2008 RTM?! All this and more explained!

David Carrington — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:52:00 GMT

The Microsoft Support Lifecycle team receives a lot of feedback from customers, particularly regarding “intriguing” topics. We’ll call this one the case of the missing Windows Server service pack release.

So what happened? Windows Server 2008 shipped on May 6, 2008 to great fanfare and well-deserved acclaim as one of the best Windows Server releases ever. However, people soon noticed in the Help, About box of Windows Explorer that Service Pack 1 (SP1) was already installed – which was odd as nobody remembered deliberately installing SP1. With the release of SP2 for Windows Server 2008, many customers had questions about the missing service pack level (ie, the RTM release) and how long it would be supported!

Was this a mistake of some kind? A marketer gone wild? The answer is a gripping tale of ship dates slipped, codebases shared and a good bit of making things fit.

Windows server and client releases have shared a common codebase since late 2001. This change simplified servicing and allowed code development methodologies that resulted in more secure and better tested Windows releases. So far, so good.

But what does a developer do when Windows Vista SP1 is being built out and Windows Server 2008 is built on the same codebase? The answer is simple: for clarity, one carries on using the Vista SP1 codebase and names the Windows Server 2008 initial RTM release SP1. This way, the naming internally remains the same and confusion is avoided. When maintaining the Windows code trees, fixes for Windows Vista SP1 are also developed for Windows Server 2008 SP1. The same story is true of the recently released SP2 for both server and client platforms.

And so our thrilling tale ends -- but not without us first telling you when support for Windows Server 2008 (RTM with SP1 installed) retires: July 12, 2011. Please update your Windows Server 2008 installation to a supported service pack before that date to ensure continued support from Microsoft. Remember, both Mainstream and Extended Support are available only at a supported service pack level.

Thanks for your continued questions and comments. More information on Microsoft’s support policies can also be found on the Microsoft Support Lifecycle website.

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Why do we end support on the second Tuesday at the end of a quarter?

Jared Proudfoot — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:33:00 GMT

Until January 2006, support for products used to expire on the anniversary date of their general availability. This meant that if a product was released on December 1, then it would also expire on December 1st - 5 or 10 years later. We received a lot of feedback from customers that this was not only inconsistent and hard to track, but also very hard to manage. In some cases, we might have 6 or 7 products all expiring on different days in the same month!

In January 2006, we announced a modification to the product expiration policy to address this issue. Now, all product expiration dates are rounded forward to expire on the second Tuesday after the end of the quarter. This means that if we previously had multiple products that would expire in December, with the new policy the new expiration dates would be rounded forward to the second Tuesday in January -- all expiring on the same day. Under this policy, products would only expire four times a year. This is much more predictable for customers and helps ease the management burden of tracking product expiration dates.

You may notice that this timeline also coincides with the second Tuesday security update release cycle. In the event Microsoft releases a security update on the same day that a product is scheduled to end its support lifecycle, support of the security update will continue for a minimum of 30 days.

We’ve received a lot of positive feedback on this change, since it helps makes the product expiration dates easier to understand and manage. What do you think? Does it make it make product expiration more predictable in your environment?

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

An explanation of the Mainstream Support phase

Jared Proudfoot — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:39:00 GMT

I’d like to write a little about the Mainstream Support phase. I think Mainstream Support is probably the best understood phase, but I want to ensure that we discuss this foundational piece before getting into some of the specific policies and offerings.

For all products, the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy begins with the Mainstream Support phase. In this phase, we are able to provide all of the standard support services that Microsoft offers. For example, in-the-box support, paid incident support, design change requests, non-security hotfixes, security updates and online self-help support may all be available during the Mainstream Support phase.

Consumer products that are released annually are provided a total of 3 years of Mainstream Support. Some examples of these are Microsoft Money, Encarta, Streets & Trips, etc.

For the rest of Consumer, Hardware and Business & Developer products, the Mainstream Support phase is provided for a minimum of 5 years or 2 years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer. This means that the Mainstream Support phase may be extended to longer than 5 years, if the follow-on product release is delayed. A good example of this might be Windows XP. With the updated release date of Windows Vista, Microsoft provided additional Mainstream Support for Windows XP. Mainstream Support for Windows XP will now end approximately 2 years following the release of Windows Vista. The basic reasoning behind this policy is that we don’t want to move a product into Extended Support if there is no newer product to migrate to.

One other important thing to note is that support is only provided at a supported service pack level. We’ll discuss more about this policy in a future posting.

At the end of the Mainstream Support phase, support for Consumer products comes to an end. Business & Developer products, on the other hand, are provided a minimum of another 5 years of support in the Extended Support phase.

Next time, we’ll talk about the Extended Support phase. Please feel free to leave questions or suggestions or future postings!

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*