Hello,

We received an email with the details:

Your workloads are running on images that will be deprecated soon

You’re receiving this email because you have virtual machine and/or virtual machine scale set deployments that are running on images scheduled for deprecation.

One or more plans within the offer windows-11 from the publisher, microsoftwindowsdesktop, have been scheduled for deprecation. You currently have workloads that are running on images within these plans.

Impact

• Following the scheduled deprecation date, you won’t be able to deploy any new virtual machines (VM) or virtual machine scale set (VMSS) instances using the images listed below.
• Your active VM instances won’t be affected following the deprecation date.
• Your existing VMSS deployments will continue to be operational but can’t be scaled out following deprecation.

Plans scheduled for deprecation

Publisher	Offer	Plan	Deprecation date (UTC)	Recommended alternative
microsoftwindowsdesktop	windows-11	win11-23h2-pro	February 12, 2026	Plan Name: win11-25h2-pr

For more details on the next steps after your image is scheduled for deprecation, visit https://aka.ms/DeprecatedImagesFAQ.

If you have previously updated your Virtual Machine or Virtual machine Scale Sets to a newer version via Azure Update Manager or other means, kindly ignore this notification.

The documentation is extremely confusing and the scripts do not work as they should. I've tried them numerous of ways but still cannot locate which computer it is talking about. I need some assistance as to what this particular information means, how to move forward, and how to identify which VMs are deprecating.

Hello Gabe

Could you please provide an update on this post?

Kindly let us know if the suggested steps helps or you need further assistance on this issue.

When utilizing the Get-AzVMImageDeprecationStatus.ps1 script, it tells me we have 0 VMs in our subscription that are deprecating but I am curious as to why we'd receive an email stating we do have a VM that is?

Gabe

The notification means you must stop creating new VMs from these old Windows 11 images soon, and you need to identify which VMs are using them by querying their ImageReference in Azure, then update those deployments using the new recommended image SKU to avoid disruption after February 12, 2026 - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/deprecated-images

Thank you

Hello @Gabe

Thank you for reaching Microsft QnA support

Using Azure CLI:

To list all VMs that use a deprecated image based on SKU (e.g., SKU "2016-Datacenter"), use:

az vm show --resource-group $rgName --name $vmName --query "storageProfile.imageReference.exactVersion

az vm list --query "[?storageProfile.imageReference.sku=='2016-Datacenter'].{VM:id, imageOffer:storageProfile.imageReference.offer, imagePublisher:StorageProfile.imageReference.publisher, imageSku: storageProfile.imageReference.sku, imageVersion:storageProfile.imageReference.version}"

To list all VMs using a particular deprecated image version (e.g., '14393.4402.2105052108'), use:

az vm list --query "[?storageProfile.imageReference.version=='14393.4402.2105052108'].{VM:id, imageOffer:storageProfile.imageReference.offer, imagePublisher:StorageProfile.imageReference.publisher, imageSku: storageProfile.imageReference.sku, imageVersion:storageProfile.imageReference.version}"

Using PowerShell:

List VM with deprecated images at version level.

(Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $rgname -Name $vmname).StorageProfile.ImageReference.ExactVersion

To find VM Scale Sets with a specific deprecated image version (e.g'14393.4402.2105052108'):

$vmsslist = Get-AzVmss
$vmsslist | where {$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Version -eq '14393.4402.2105052108'} | Select-Object -Property ResourceGroupName, Name, @{label='imageOffer'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Offer}}, @{label='imagePublisher'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Publisher}}, @{label='imageSKU'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Sku}}, @{label='imageVersion'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Version}}

To filter scale sets by SKU (e.g., '2016-Datacenter'):

$vmsslist = Get-AzVmss
$vmsslist | where {$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Sku -eq '2016-Datacenter'} | Select-Object -Property ResourceGroupName, Name, @{label='imageOffer'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Offer}}, @{label='imagePublisher'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Publisher}}, @{label='imageSKU'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Sku}}, @{label='imageVersion'; expression={$_.virtualMachineProfile.storageProfile.imageReference.Version}}

• Run Get-AzVMImageDeprecationStatus.ps1 to list if any VMs or VM scale sets in a subscription were created from VM images that are scheduled for deprecation.

When an image is deprecated, there's no impact on existing VMs and no action is required. When an image is deprecated, only Virtual Machine Scale Set scale-out operations and new VM and Virtual Machine Scale Set create operations are impacted.

When utilizing the Get-AzVMImageDeprecationStatus.ps1 script, it tells me we have 0 VMs in our subscription that are deprecating but I am curious as to why we'd receive an email stating we do have a VM that is?

The notification means you must stop creating new VMs from these old Windows 11 images soon, and you need to identify which VMs are using them by querying their ImageReference in Azure, then update those deployments using the new recommended image SKU to avoid disruption after February 12, 2026 - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/deprecated-images

@Gabe - If the above answer helped, please "Accept Answer" as this may help other community members to refer the info if facing a similar issue. Your contribution to the Microsoft Q&A community is highly appreciated.