Microsoft has officially announced the deprecation of the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) from its Windows Server Routing and Remote Access (RRAS) services.

Both PPTP and L2TP have been used for over two decades to facilitate remote access to corporate networks and servers. However, these legacy protocols are considered outdated and insecure by modern standards.

Microsoft now recommends that organizations move to the SSTP and IKEv2 protocols, both of which provide enhanced security and performance over their legacy counterparts.

“Note that PPTP and L2TP will still remain available if you want to make outgoing VPN connections based on these protocols. This is true for future Servers and Client SKU releases. However, what is being changed is that Windows RRAS Server (VPN Server) will not accept any incoming VPN connections based on these protocols,” Microsoft said.

To help administrators in migrating to SSTP and IKEv2 the company released a step-by-step guide.