In a last-week disclosure, Microsoft officials revealed that the Windows Server 2008 support cut-off date has been extended by the software company by two years.

The two-year addition of optional extended support for Windows Server 2008 by Microsoft implies that while Windows Server 2008 was earlier supposed to move to optional, paid extended support - from its original free, mainstream support - on July 9, 2013, the support cut-off will now take place on January 15, 2015.

With Microsoft providing five years of mainstream and extended support each for all its "consumer" or "business" Windows releases, the company's officials handling lifecycle policies and procedures have revealed that the two-year addition to Windows Server 2008's mainstream to extended support is a modification which has resulted from "the launch of Windows Server 2012."

Drawing attention to Microsoft's policy of providing "a minimum of five years of Mainstream Support or two years of Mainstream Support after the successor product ships, whichever is longer.," the officials said in the latest edition of Microsoft's quarterly lifecycle newsletter that the release of Windows Server 2012 gives the users of Windows Server 2008 "the additional 2 years of support."

It was in February 2008 that Microsoft released Windows Server 2008 to manufacturing; followed by the release to manufacturing of its successor - Windows Server 2008 R2 - in July 2009; and the release of the latest Windows Server edition, Windows Server 2012, to manufacturing on August 1, 2012.