I’m sure you were as confused as I was when I started reading that Windows was going to charge $1.50 per month just for updates.
Microsoft recently announced the full release of hotpatching in Windows Server 2025. This is what IT departments use to share a collective cloud space across a network, and it acts as a wall of security for the individual devices connected to that server.
Windows Server 2025 is offering the ability to hotpatch, which installs updates without the need to restart the server. This doesn’t mean your system will never need a reboot, but according to Microsoft’s blog, it’ll be less frequent.
Hotpatching has been available in the preview version of Windows Server 2025 since 2024 (confusing, I know). It will become generally available on July 1, 2025.
Again, this is only for people who use Windows Server 2025. In other words, if you’re not attached to a dedicated Windows Server in your house or in a company office, this isn’t something you need to worry about.
That's good news for regular Windows users, however, this type of behavior may not really bode well for consumers in the future.
Hotpatching in Windows Server 2025
The issue with this “quality of life” feature is that it’s locked behind a paywall. It may not affect a majority of Windows users, but what’s stopping Microsoft from introducing something like this to regular users in the future?
Microsoft is acting like Windows 11 has some paid DLC to make the game easier when it's a feature that should already be built in.
It gets a little worse, too. If Windows Server users are already participating in the preview, they will automatically be charged the $1.50 subscription fee when it officially releases. In order to avoid this, you need to disenroll from Azure Arc in preview on or before June 30.
It seems like Microsoft forgot that Windows actually isn’t free. We don’t really notice it because it comes preloaded in a majority of laptops and PCs. But you’re seeing that cost one way or another, and you’ll get a closer look at the price if you are building a gaming PC.
To be clear, Windows Server 2025 costs $1,176 for the Standard edition and $6,771 for the Datacenter edition, or $33.58 per CPU core per month. Asking for $1.50 per month on top of that feels like nickel-and-diming.
It would be nice for a feature like hotpatching to show up on the individual consumer side of things, but I’m not getting my hopes up. And even if something similar does show, are we going to have to pay an additional cost?
I have a feverish nightmare being forced to pay a fee just to get rid of pop-ads (glares at Amazon’s Kindle).
