Is Microsoft running away from developing new features for on premise software. Microsoft has now 100% gone cloud first :(

[Captain Lukey]

What is going on? I run Windows Servers 2025, 2022, and 2019 on-premises for testing, as well as various instances of servers and VMs in the Azure cloud. Looking at the lackluster updates for Server 2025 and the removal of yet more features from on-premises software—for example, Microsoft will stop driver synchronization through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) on April 18, 2025, making it exclusive to Azure—it seems like Microsoft is prioritizing cloud services.

Additionally, authentication fixes in Entra ID appear to be rolled out much faster compared to Active Directory. Has Microsoft shifted the majority of its development teams towards Azure software production and services? It really seems like a push toward $$$ and a pay-as-you-go model. So disappointing... or am i wrong?

 

[MonumentNetworking]

Whos data is it when it is in the "cloud"? Herein is your answer.

 

[Captain Lukey]

Whos data is it when it is in the "cloud"? Herein is your answer.

100% agree, but looking at all new products eg windows 11 - Straight from the MS cookbook.. Windows 11 can track your windows and web browsing activity, including your browsing history and any search terms you type into a Microsoft browser, like Microsoft Edge. It can also keep track of any changes you make to configuration settings. (straight to the cloud) even opting out. Unless you 100% firewall and DMZ it ..

 

[Phence]

Whos data is it when it is in the "cloud"? Herein is your answer.

This for server - that's how they make money on server.

On consumer they "allow" or engineer you to be in a walled garden to sync all with one account as advertising and tracking is where they also make money. So syncing across devices etc it's not a feature, it's a revenue stream...

 

[drdepasquale]

Each new version of Windows Server has fewer and fewer new useful features added compared to the last

 

[Captain Lukey]

Each new version of Windows Server has fewer and fewer new useful features added compared to the last

Exactly, I was just looking for the latest Azure feature set..

• SMB 3.1.1 support (encryption & secure transport), moving to SMB 4
• Kerberos & NTLM authentication (Active Directory integration).
• Azure AD & Microsoft Entra ID integration for identity-based access.
• Soft delete & snapshots for data recovery.
• Geo-redundancy (RA-GRS, GRS, ZRS) for disaster recovery.
• Scale-out performance (up to 100 TiB per file share).
• Hybrid support using Azure File Sync (cache files on-prem).

my conclusion is if you need full control, Windows Server 2025 on-premises is better (NICE) .. But according to MS If you need scalability, cost flexibility, and managed infrastructure Azure is better... Ummm

 

[dracocephalum]

The only reason for me to use Hyper-V is because to run Guest Mode RDMA inside a Windows VM, I need a Windows Hypervisor due to driver support requirements (c'mon both Intel and Chelsio). Otherwise I will just go Linux KVM.

 

[ServerFanatic]

Enable third-party updates - Configuration Manager | Microsoft Learn

Well you can use SCCM or third party updates so MS aren't abandoning per say the seem to be tightening up on the security of associated with drivers support. the article above give options to utilise.

extract from the article
Enable third-party updates on the clients
Enable third-party updates on the clients in the client settings. The setting sets the Windows Update agent policy for Allow signed updates for an intranet Microsoft update service location. This client setting also installs the WSUS signing certificate to the Trusted Publisher store on the client. The certificate management logging is seen in updatesdeployment.log on the clients. Run these steps for each custom client setting you want to use for third-party updates. For more information, see the About client settings article.

1. In the Configuration Manager console, go to the Administration workspace and select the Client Settings node.
2. Select an existing custom client setting or create a new one.
3. Select the Software Updates tab on the left-hand side. If you don't have this tab, make sure that the Software Updates box is enabled.
4. Set Enable third-party software updates to Yes.

Add a custom catalog
Partner catalogs are software vendor catalogs that have their information already registered with Microsoft. With partner catalogs, you can subscribe to them without having to specify any additional information. Catalogs that you add are called custom catalogs. You can add a custom catalog from a third-party update vendor to Configuration Manager. Custom catalogs must use https and the updates must be digitally signed.

1. Go to the Software Updates Library workspace, expand Software updates, and select the Third-Party Software Update Catalogs node.

 

[Captain Lukey]

I totally understand why IT teams would use SCCM at scale which is ensuring on premise products are more secure. I know of a company that had around 6K+ windows 10 clients. It was abandone because of the end user experiemce. The two main reason was;
Challenging Patch Management

• Issue: Software Update Point (SUP) integration with WSUS is notoriously finicky.
• Impact: Sync issues, metadata bloat, and patch deployment failures are common frustrations.

Slow Client Communication

• Issue: SCCM clients communicate with servers on a schedule (every 60 minutes by default).
• Impact: Changes (like deployments or configurations) can take time to reflect, making real-time troubleshooting hard.

And something to do with a product that killed them that was faulty from CrowdStrike's and the local patch management.

 

[cheezehead]

MS has been Azure/Entra/O365 first for a few years now. Outside of a few edge cases, products are developed for the cloud and then features that make sense are brought into the on-prem product.

On-prem management products like SCCM are still there and do the heavy lifting for many orgs even with the push to Intune.

My bigger pain point with their philosophy is what's present for management platforms. Take Hyper-V management while powershell for scripting makes sense and hyper-v manager for single node management works good when you start to look at multiple host management you have VMM, failover cluster manager, WAC, and hyper-v manager in some cases.....vs with VMware just vCenter or Xen Orchestra with XCP-ng.

 

[Captain Lukey]

I totally agree with the statement "MS has been Azure/Entra/O365 first for a few years now." but if you look at the decline of features that never made it into the on prem product it clear to me that MS is 100% pushing a long term cloud only strategy. Its all about $$$
Recurring Revenue Model

• Azure = Subscription-based (cloud)
  
  
• On-prem = One-time licenses

Cloud services like Azure generate predictable, recurring revenue via subscriptions and consumption billing. This aligns with Microsoft's broader shift to a "software-as-a-service" (SaaS) model, which Wall Street favors due to stability and growth potential.

Integrated AI and Modern Services
Azure supports modern workloads like:

• AI/ML (e.g., Azure OpenAI Service)
  
  
• IoT
  
  
• Serverless computing
  
  
• Hybrid cloud (Azure Arc)

These capabilities are far more difficult or impossible to implement fully on-prem - GPU for Hire???