Windows-2016 environment will be removed on March 15, 2022

[miketimofeev]

Breaking changes

Windows 2016 hosted runners will be removed from GitHub actions and Azure DevOps.
To raise awareness of the upcoming removal, we will temporarily fail jobs using Windows 2016 for two short 'brownout' periods. Builds that are scheduled to run during the brownout periods will fail. The brownouts are scheduled for the following dates and times:

GitHub Actions:

• December 1, 2021 4:00pm UTC – 10:00pm UTC
• February 7, 2022 4:00pm UTC – 10:00pm UTC

Azure DevOps

• December, 15 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM UTC
• January, 11 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM UTC
• January, 21 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM UTC
• February, 2 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM UTC
• February, 14 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM UTC
• February, 24 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM UTC
• March, 9 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM UTC

Target date

March 15, 2022

The motivation for the changes

Windows Server 2016 Active support ends on 11 Jan 2022 and Windows Server 2022 VM image is going out of beta later this year.
As part of our ongoing efforts to keep GitHub and Azure Devops hosted runners updated and secure, the Windows 2016 virtual environment will be removed from GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps.

Possible impact

If your project depends on Windows 2016 environment and visual studio 2017 it can be broken.

Virtual environments affected

• Ubuntu 16.04
• Ubuntu 18.04
• Ubuntu 20.04
• macOS 10.15
• macOS 11
• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Mitigation ways

We recommend you change jobs using runs-on: windows-2016 to use runs-on: windows-latest which will ensure you're always running on the latest version of Windows Server.

If you need to pin your job to a specific version of Windows Server, you can see the full list of supported versions here https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments#available-environments

[IanKemp]

Windows Server 2016 Active support ends on 11 Jan 2022 and we are Windows Server 2022 VM image is going out of beta later this year.

This sentence makes no grammatical sense and as such I have no idea what it is trying to say. Please do basic proofreading before you post something that the entire world is likely to see.

[miketimofeev]

@IanKemp thanks, fixed

[CrisBuda]

It's great that I got this notification right there in the Azure DevOps Release Definition. I can easily change the agent, however, I don't have an option for Windows-latest in the dropdown. The only other two windows ones are windows-2019 and windows-2022. Can I choose windows-2022 and assume it will be supported for a few years?

[miketimofeev]

@CrisBuda sure thing! Both windows-2019 and windows-2022 will be supported for a few years. windows-latest is available using yml definitions and currently points to windows-2019 image as 2022 is in the beta state.

[CrisBuda]

@CrisBuda sure thing! Both windows-2019 and windows-2022 will be supported for a few years. windows-latest is available using yml definitions and currently points to windows-2019 image as 2022 is in the beta state.

Thanks for clearing that up. windows-2022 doesn't mention it is in beta in the dropdown. I will choose windows-2019

[markybry]

I haven't specified runs-on anywhere and I am still seeing this warning and can't see where to specify it. Is it as simple as adding the following to my azure-pipelines.yml file as per https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/customize-pipeline?view=azure-devops

pool:
vmImage: "ubuntu-latest"

or

pool:
vmImage: "windows-latest"

[miketimofeev]

@markybry yes, it is that simple. Classic pipelines editor sets windows-2016 VM image by default, but this will be changed in the nearest future.

[Croydon]

I have no problem saying goodbye to Windows Server 2016, but dropping Visual Studio 2017 is kinda hurtful. Not all projects can use up-to-date tooling

[IanKemp]

I have no problem saying goodbye to Windows Server 2016, but dropping Visual Studio 2017 is kinda hurtful. Not all projects can use up-to-date tooling

Visual Studio 2017 is half a decade old at this point, which is an epoch in software development. If your project depends on VS2017 maybe, just maybe, it's time to figure out an upgrade path.

[markybry]

@markybry yes, it is that simple. Classic pipelines editor sets windows-2016 VM image by default, but this will be changed in the nearest future.

Seems that when no vm image is specified that any VM available at that time is selected which may then cause this error.

[miketimofeev]

@markybry the recommended approach is to target a specific image that suits your needs

[valx]

We are using Azure DevOps to deploy resources from an ARM template.
In particular in Azure DevOps Release Pipelines, we use an "ARM template deployment" task (latest version: 3.*).
When the release is executed we get a warning:
<<The windows-2016 environment will be deprecated on November 15, 2021, and removed on March 15, 2022. Migrate to windows-latest instead. For more details see #4312 >>
As a developer using the Microsoft 'pre-packaged' task, I cannot configure the underlying Windows version.
So is the task going to be modified accordingly to use a newer version of Windows or is an alternative going to be offered to deploy ARM templates in Azure Devops Releases?