Microsoft Denies Automatic Upgrade of Windows Server 2019/2022 to 2025

This week, some corporate IT administrators noticed that their Windows Server 2022 systems had been automatically updated to the newly released Windows Server 2025.

Given the paramount importance of stability for server systems, such unauthorized automatic upgrades can lead to business interruptions during the upgrade process, as well as potential compatibility issues with certain software following the upgrade.

Previous support documents from Microsoft revealed that Windows Server 2025 is capable of a lossless upgrade from older versions, but the occurrence of such unexpected automatic upgrades is still surprising.

Today, Microsoft released a statement in their health dashboard acknowledging that Windows Server 2025 was indeed pushed as an optional update to Windows Server 2022 users but denied any automatic upgrade behavior.

As an optional update, it should be at the administrator's discretion to install such updates, which theoretically should not install automatically unless there was an error on the part of IT administrators or issues with third-party update management software.

The cumulative update number for Windows Server 2025 is KB5044284. Based on feedback from some IT administrators, the possibility of accidental installation cannot be dismissed.

For instance, some IT administrators reported that their third-party software identified this update as a security update, although it should have been classified as a feature update. Security updates are usually installed automatically, whereas feature updates or optional updates are not.

Currently, Microsoft does not admit to any clear mistakes on their part, so the root cause may require more time to investigate. It is possible that the issue lies with third-party software misidentification, or perhaps some IT administrators accidentally selected KB5044284 without paying close attention.