.NET Framework 4.x container images will be consolidated

[richlander]

We plan to consolidate .NET Framework 4.x images. We will publish one .NET Framework version per Windows Server version. This change will simplify our container image offering and encourage users to prefer .NET Framework and Windows versions that work best in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and likely other cloud services.

We will make this change starting October 14, 2025.

It will affect the following container repos:

• mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/runtime
• mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet
• mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/wcf
• mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/sdk

The following tags will no longer be maintained:

• 4.6.2
• 4.7
• 4.7.1
• 4.7.2
• 4.8 (Windows Server 2022 only)

Users will need to make the following changes:

• Windows Server 2016 and 2019 users will need to move to 4.8 version tags.
• Windows Server 2022 users will need to move to 4.8.1 tags.
• Windows Server 2025 users are unaffected.

In addition, we will not publish samples images for Windows Server 2016.

This announcement follows our announcement about .NET Framework 3.5 image consolidation.