Official support policy for Linux guest os on given hyper-v version

Question

Hi. I was looking for official policy on supporting given guest operating system on specific hyper-v because it seems unclear for me. Let's take a look for Debian for example. "Supported Debian virtual machines on Hyper-V" mention Debian 10 and Debian 11. For those Windows Server versions mentioned are 2019, 2016 and 2012 R2.

Does it mean:

• Debian 12 is NOT supported on any Windows Server as a guest OS?
• NO Debian is suported on Windows Server 2022 or 2025?

I am looking for official answer.

Thank you

Answer 1

Hello,

To directly answer your questions:

• If the official documentation shows only Debian 10 and 11 as supported, then rather than saying “Debian 12 is not supported on any Windows Server” it means that Debian 12 isn’t part of the tested and supported configurations. So, if you deploy Debian 12 on a Hyper-V host, you may be in an unsupported configuration as far as Microsoft support is concerned—even if the platform runs.

• Similarly, if only Windows Server versions 2012 R2, 2016, and 2019 are cited in the matrix, then Linux guests (including Debian 10 and 11) running on Windows Server 2022 (or any later unlisted Windows Server version) are also outside of Microsoft’s official support scope.

In summary, Microsoft’s official policy is to support only those Linux distributions and versions, as well as host operating systems, that have been explicitly included in its published documentation. When planning deployment in a production environment where support is a concern, you should stick with the listed versions.

Links to reference documentation that may be helpful：

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/supported-linux-and-freebsd-virtual-machines-for-hyper-v-on-windows

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