Microsoft is removing services or components from Windows Server 2025 or stopped developing them.
Table of Contents
Services Removed with Windows Server 2025
| Feature | Explanation |
|---|---|
| IIS 6 Management Console (Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console) | The console has been removed after being no longer developed in Windows Server 2019. You should also start migration from IIS 6.0 or earlier versions, and move to the latest version of IIS, which is always available in the most recent release of Windows Server. |
| Wordpad | WordPad has been removed from Windows Server 2025. We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt. |
| SMTP Server | The SMTP Server features has been removed from Windows Server 2025. There’s no replacement within the operating systems. |
| Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine | The Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine has been removed, applications, and components should be migrated to PowerShell 5.0+. |
Services no longer developed with Windows Server 2025
| Feature | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Computer Browser | The Computer Browser driver and service are deprecated. The browser (browser protocol and service) is a dated and insecure device location protocol. This protocol, service, and driver were first disabled by default in Windows 10 with the removal of the SMB1 service. For more information on Computer Browser, see MS-BRWS Common Internet File System. |
| NTLM | All versions of NTLM, including LANMAN, NTLMv1, and NTLMv2, are no longer under active feature development and are deprecated. Use of NTLM will continue to work in the next release of Windows Server and the next annual release of Windows. Calls to NTLM should be replaced by calls to Negotiate, which will try to authenticate with Kerberos and only fall back to NTLM when necessary. For more information, see The evolution of Windows authentication. |
| Remote Mailslots | Remote Mailslots are deprecated. The Remote Mailslot protocol, which was initially introduced in MS DOS, is a dated and simple IPC method that is both unreliable and insecure. This protocol was first disabled by default in Windows 11 Insider Preview Build . For more information on Remote Mailslots, see About Mailslots and [MS-MAIL]: Remote Mailslot Protocol. |
| TLS 1.0 TLS 1.1 | TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1 have been deprecated by internet standards and regulatory bodies due to various security concerns. As of the 2024 release of Windows Server Insiders Preview, these versions are disabled by default. For more information on TLS deprecation, see TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 deprecation in Windows. |
| WebDAV Redirector service | The WebDAV Redirector service is deprecated. The service isn’t installed by default in Windows Server. For more information on the WebDAV Redirector service, see WebDAV – Win32 apps. |
| Windows Management Instrumentation Command line (WMIC) | WMIC is disabled by default for new installations of Windows Server. It will be removed from Windows in a future release. PowerShell for WMI replaces the WMIC tool. Use PowerShell or programmatically query WMI as a replacement for WMIC. To learn more about WMIC depreciation, see WMI command line (WMIC) utility deprecation: Next steps |
| VBScript | VBScript is deprecated. In future releases of Windows, VBScript is available as a feature on demand before its removal from the operating system. |
Conclusion
Most changes shouldn’t have a significant on your environment. In environments that have been created using legacy approaches, you should play attention to the development plan around NTLM. Pay a close look to this documentation and plan your removal of NTLM with Kerberos. Still using NTLM is a technical debt, that you should start to identify, track and pay the debt for as soon as you can afford it.
If you want to setup a Windows Server 2025 journey today and learn how to combine it with Azure Arc and cloud technology, you can start your journey here.
