End of support in 2027: Windows Server 2016, SQL Server 2017 and the factory PCs that run on them

In a small factory, the server is usually the one machine nobody wants to touch. It sits in a corner of the accounts office, it runs the ERP database or the label software, and the person who set it up may have left years ago.

2027 is the year many of those machines run out of Microsoft support. Windows Server 2016 loses its security updates on 12 January 2027. SQL Server 2017, the database under plenty of accounting, ERP and label software, follows on 12 October 2027. The machines will keep running. What stops is the security fixes.

Checked against Microsoft's own lifecycle pages on 28 October 2026.

I am not an IT engineer, and this is not a replacement for your IT partner. What I can give you is Microsoft's dates and a plain way to decide, machine by machine.

What "end of support" means for a machine that is still running

Microsoft's Ending Support in 2027 page is plain about it. After the date there are no new security updates, no non-security updates and no free or paid assisted support.

So nothing breaks on the morning of 13 January.

The risk builds slowly instead. Every weakness discovered after that day stays open on your machine, and attackers know exactly which versions have stopped getting patches.

There is a second, quieter cost. Software makers stop testing new releases on old Windows. One day the update for your label or weighbridge software says your Windows is not supported, and then you are stuck on the old software as well.

The 2027 dates, in one table

The sources are Microsoft Learn's Ending Support in 2027 list and the product pages for Windows Server 2016, SQL Server 2017 and Windows 11 Home and Pro. Some product pages show the end as the early hours of the following day. I have used the day before, which is how Microsoft's own 2027 list writes it.

Two that have already ended, so check them first

1. Windows 10 Home and Pro lost support on 14 October 2025. Businesses can buy Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10 version 22H2 for at most three years after that. Microsoft's ESU page gives the price as US$61 per device for year one, doubling each year. The years are cumulative, so if you join in year two, you pay for year one as well.
2. SQL Server 2016 reached the end of extended support on 14 July 2026. Microsoft's SQL Server 2016 page lists paid Extended Security Updates in yearly steps, with the first year running to July 2027.

If any machine is still on one of these, it is already a 2026 problem.

A Windows 11 PC is not automatically safe

People hear "Windows 10 is over", buy Windows 11, and relax. But Windows 11 comes in yearly versions, and each version has its own end date.

On Microsoft's Windows 11 Home and Pro page, version 24H2 has already ended and version 25H2 ends on 12 October 2027. Version 26H2, released on 29 September 2026, is supported into October 2028.

At home, Windows Update moves you to the next version without asking. In a factory it often does not. Somebody paused updates because a restart killed a print job, or the PC on the packing line never connects to the internet at all. (I understand why. Nobody wants a restart in the middle of dispatch.) Those PCs fall behind quietly.

Type winver in the Start menu of each PC. One small window shows the edition and the version.

It takes ten seconds per PC, and it is the cheapest check in this whole article.

SQL Server 2017 and the software that sits on it

Most owners do not know which database their ERP or label software uses. The vendor or partner does.

We run our own factory on SAP Business One, which can run on Microsoft SQL Server or on SAP HANA. So I would ask the same two questions about any software in your factory that uses SQL Server:

1. Which SQL Server version is it on today? In SQL Server Management Studio, the query SELECT @@VERSION answers it in one line.
2. Which newer SQL Server versions does our current software release support? Get the answer in writing before anybody upgrades anything.

The order matters.

Moving the database to a version your software release is not built for can leave you worse off than the old database did.

There is a factory-specific trap in the date. 12 October 2027 is 17 days before Diwali, which falls on 29 October 2027. Nobody should be moving an ERP database in the busiest dispatch weeks of the year. Plan the SQL Server move for a month that is quiet in your own business, and finish it before September.

If you run SAP Business One, the separate SAP question is answered in SAP ECC support ends in 2027: does it affect SAP Business One users?

Make the list first: a one-afternoon inventory

You cannot decide anything about machines you have not counted. Walk around with one sheet and fill these columns for every PC and server.

Do not forget the machines that do not look like computers. A panel PC on a machine, the PC behind the weighbridge display or the attendance software, and the box that records your CCTV may all run Windows.

Put the IT machines on the same list you use for preventive maintenance. A server deserves a logbook as much as a compressor does.

Upgrade, replace, isolate or pay: how to decide

For each line on your list, one of four answers fits.

1. Upgrade in place when the hardware can take the new version and every program on it is supported there. For Windows 11, Microsoft's PC Health Check app tells you whether a PC qualifies.
2. Replace when the hardware cannot take a supported version. A server bought new with Windows Server 2016 is about ten years old now, so its disks and power supply may be due anyway.
3. Isolate when the software cannot move. This happens with PCs supplied by a machine maker, where the machine program runs only on the Windows it came with. Take that PC off the internet, give it its own network, allow only one controlled USB drive, and keep a tested backup of the machine program.
4. Pay for Extended Security Updates only as a bridge to one of the first three. For Windows Server 2016, Microsoft announced paid ESU delivered through Azure Arc in a February 2026 post on its Windows Server blog. Ask your Microsoft partner for the terms and the price in writing.

My own rule is simple. If a machine holds money data (invoices, payments, payroll) or personal data, it gets upgraded or replaced, not isolated. Isolation is for PCs whose only job is to run a machine.

Payroll and attendance data also come under the new data protection rules from 13 May 2027, which I cover in CCTV, biometric attendance and HR files.

What to do between now and 12 January 2027

1. This week: make the list above. In a small factory it takes one afternoon.
2. November: send each software vendor one email asking which Windows and SQL Server versions their current release supports, and what the upgrade will cost. Keep the replies.
3. December: decide upgrade, replace, isolate or pay for every line, and get quotes for the replacements.
4. Before 12 January: take a full backup of each server and restore it once on another machine. Until you have restored a backup, you do not really know that it works.
5. Before September 2027: finish the SQL Server 2017 move, well before 12 October and the Diwali dispatch weeks.

I will not give prices here. Licences, hardware and partner charges vary too much, and they change every year.

Start with winver on the PC you are reading this on. Then go and do the same on the server in the corner, the one nobody wants to touch.