Security Products

Support for Forefront antimalware products ends Dec. 31, 2015. No new versions will be released for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint, or Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (which had been extended to provide some protection for Lync Server 2010). Support, including antimalware signature updates, will be provided for the discontinued products and for the older Antigen products until Dec. 31, 2015. The Protection Server Management Console 2010 (not shown) was also discontinued.

The Endpoint Protection product dropped the Forefront brand to become part of System Center 2012, and administrators must use the Configuration Manager console for central management of Endpoint Protection security updates and policies. Endpoint Protection was updated to 2012 R2 at the same time as the other System Center products and will be updated frequently in conjunction with Configuration Manager; the next update, called vNext here, will arrive in the fourth quarter of 2015. Windows Server 2016 (now expected in the third quarter of 2016) includes Windows Server Antimalware, which has similar capabilities to Endpoint Protection.