Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the sixth version of the

Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a group of operating systems (OS) for servers that Microsoft has been developing since July 27, 1993. The first OS that was released for this platform was Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server. With the r ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

, as part of the

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

family of operating systems. It is the

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

version of Windows based on

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

and succeeds

Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became General av ...

, which is derived from the

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

codebase, released nearly three years earlier. Two pre-release versions, a developer preview and a

beta version A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

, were released during development. The software was officially launched on September 4, 2012, which was the month before the release of

. A successor was released on October 18, 2013, entitled Windows Server 2012 R2. Its mainstream support ended on October 9, 2018, and extended support will end on October 10, 2023. Windows Server 2012 is eligible for the paid Extended Security Updates (ESU) program (free for Azure Virtual Desktop users), that can extend it's support for 3 years after end of support. Security Updates are available for the operating system until October 13, 2026. Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 has no support for

Itanium Itanium ( ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). Launched in June 2001, Intel marketed the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computin ...

-based computers, and has four editions. Various features were added or improved over Windows Server 2008 R2 (with many placing an emphasis on

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

), such as an updated version of

Hyper-V Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian, and briefly known before its release as Windows Server Virtualization, is a native hypervisor; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. Starting with Windows 8, Hyper-V superseded W ...

, an IP address management role, a new version of

Windows Task Manager Task Manager, previously known as Windows Task Manager, is a task manager, system monitor, and startup manager included with Microsoft Windows systems. It provides information about computer performance and running software, including name of r ...

, and

ReFS Resilient File System (ReFS), codenamed "Protogon", is a Microsoft proprietary file system introduced with Windows Server 2012 with the intent of becoming the "next generation" file system after NTFS. ReFS was designed to overcome problems tha ...

, a new

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

. Windows Server 2012 received generally good reviews in spite of having included the same controversial

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

-based user interface seen in Windows 8, which includes the Charms Bar for quick access to settings in the desktop environment.

History

Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the fifth release of

family of operating systems developed concurrently with

. It was not until April 17, 2012 that the company announced that the final product name would be "Windows Server 2012". Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2012 and its developer preview in the BUILD 2011 conference on September 9, 2011. However, unlike Windows 8, the developer preview of Windows Server 2012 was only made available to

MSDN Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

subscribers. It included a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

(GUI) based on

Metro design language Microsoft Design Language (or MDL), previously known as Metro, is a design language created by Microsoft. This design language is focused on typography and simplified icons, absence of clutter, increased content to chrome ratio ("content bef ...

and a new Server Manager, a graphical application used for server management. On February 16, 2012, Microsoft released an update for developer preview build that extended its expiry date from April 8, 2012 to January 15, 2013. Before Windows Server 2012 was finalized, two test builds were made public. A public

of Windows Server 2012 was released along with the

Consumer Preview on February 29, 2012. The

release candidate A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

of Windows Server 2012 was released on May 31, 2012, along with the Windows 8 Release Preview. The product was

released to manufacturing A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

on August 1, 2012 (along with

) and became generally available on September 4, that year. However, not all editions of Windows Server 2012 were released at the same time. Windows Server 2012 Essentials was released to manufacturing on October 9, 2012 and was made generally available on November 1, 2012. As of September 23, 2012, all students subscribed to

DreamSpark Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching or simply Azure Dev Tools for Teaching is a Microsoft program to provide students with Microsoft software design, Microsoft developer tools, Cloud Computing Access and learning resources. The program is a ...

program can download Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter free of charge. Windows Server 2012 is based on Windows Server 2008 R2 and

and requires

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...

CPUs (64-bit), while

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 is the fourth release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on Fe ...

worked on the older

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of ...

(32-bit) architecture as well. Coupled with fundamental changes in the structure of the client backups and the shared folders, there is no clear method for migrating from the previous version to Windows Server 2012.

Features

Installation options

Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 can switch between "

Server Core Server Core is a minimalistic Microsoft Windows Server installation option, debuted in Windows Server 2008. Server Core provides a server environment with functionality scaled back to core server features, and because of limited features, it has ...

" and "Server with a

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

" installation options without a full reinstallation. Server Core – an option with a command-line interface only – is now the recommended configuration. There is also a third installation option that allows some GUI elements such as MMC and Server Manager to run, but without the normal desktop,

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

or default programs like

File Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

User interface

Server Manager has been redesigned with an emphasis on easing management of multiple servers. The operating system, like

, uses the Metro-based

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

unless installed in Server Core mode.

Windows Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...

is available by installing the desktop experience feature from the server manager, but is not installed by default.

Windows PowerShell PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it was made open-so ...

in this version has over 2300 commandlets, compared to around 200 in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Task Manager

Windows Server 2012 includes a new version of

together with the old version. In the new version the tabs are hidden by default, showing applications only. In the new Processes tab, the processes are displayed in varying shades of yellow, with darker shades representing heavier resource use. Information found in the older versions are now moved to the new Details tab. The Performance tab shows "CPU", "Memory", "Disk", "Wi-Fi" and "Ethernet" graphs. Unlike the

version of Task Manager (which looks similar), the "Disk" activity graph is not enabled by default. The CPU tab no longer displays individual graphs for every logical processor on the system by default, although that remains an option. Additionally, it can display data for each

non-uniform memory access Non-uniform memory access (NUMA) is a computer memory design used in multiprocessing, where the memory access time depends on the memory location relative to the processor. Under NUMA, a processor can access its own local memory faster than non ...

(NUMA) node. When displaying data for each logical processor for machines with more than 64 logical processors, the CPU tab now displays simple utilization percentages on heat-mapping tiles. The color used for these heat maps is blue, with darker shades again indicating heavier utilization. Hovering the cursor over any logical processor's data now shows the NUMA node of that processor and its ID, if applicable. Additionally, a new Startup tab has been added that lists startup applications, however this tab does not exist in Windows Server 2012. The new task manager recognizes when a

app has the "Suspended" status.

IP address management (IPAM)

Windows Server 2012 has an IP address management role for discovering, monitoring, auditing, and managing the

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

space used on a corporate network. The IPAM is used for the management and monitoring of

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...

(DNS) and

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the network using a cli ...

(DHCP) servers. Both

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version de ...

and

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...

are fully supported.

Active Directory

Windows Server 2012 has a number of changes to

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralize ...

from the version shipped with Windows Server 2008 R2. The Active Directory Domain Services installation wizard has been replaced by a new section in Server Manager, and a GUI has been added to the Active Directory Recycle Bin. Multiple password policies can be set in the same domain. Active Directory in Windows Server 2012 is now aware of any changes resulting from virtualization, and virtualized domain controllers can be safely cloned. Upgrades of the domain functional level to Windows Server 2012 are simplified; it can be performed entirely in Server Manager. Active Directory Federation Services is no longer required to be downloaded when installed as a role, and claims which can be used by the Active Directory Federation Services have been introduced into the Kerberos token. Windows Powershell commands used by Active Directory Administrative Center can be viewed in a "Powershell History Viewer".

Hyper-V

Windows Server 2012, along with

, includes a new version of

, as presented at the Microsoft BUILD event. Many new features have been added to Hyper-V, including network virtualization, multi-tenancy, storage resource pools, cross-premises connectivity, and cloud backup. Additionally, many of the former restrictions on resource consumption have been greatly lifted. Each virtual machine in this version of Hyper-V can access up to 64 virtual processors, up to 1 terabyte of memory, and up to 64 terabytes of virtual disk space per virtual hard disk (using a new format). Up to 1024 virtual machines can be active per host, and up to 8000 can be active per failover cluster. SLAT is a required processor feature for Hyper-V on

, while for Windows Server 2012 it is only required for the supplementary

RemoteFX Microsoft RemoteFX is a Microsoft brand name that covers a set of technologies that enhance visual experience of the Microsoft-developed remote display protocol Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). RemoteFX was first introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 ...

role.

ReFS

Resilient File System (ReFS), codenamed "Protogon", is a new

in Windows Server 2012 initially intended for

file server In computing, a file server (or fileserver) is a computer attached to a network that provides a location for shared disk access, i.e. storage of computer files (such as text, image, sound, video) that can be accessed by the workstations that are ab ...

s that improves on

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...

in some respects. Major new features of ReFS include: ;Improved reliability for on-disk structures: ReFS uses B+ trees for all on-disk structures including metadata and file data. Metadata and file data are organized into tables similar to a

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

. The file size, number of files in a folder, total volume size and number of folders in a volume are limited by 64-bit numbers; as a result ReFS supports a maximum file size of 16

exabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

s, a maximum of 18.4 × 10¹⁸ folders and a maximum volume size of 1

yottabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

(with 64 KB clusters) which allows large scalability with no practical limits on file and folder size (hardware restrictions still apply). Free space is counted by a hierarchical allocator which includes three separate tables for large, medium, and small chunks. File names and file paths are each limited to a 32 KB

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

text string. ;Built-in resilience: ReFS employs an allocation-on-write update strategy for metadata, which allocates new chunks for every update transaction and uses large IO batches. All ReFS metadata has built-in 64-bit checksums which are stored independently. The file data can have an optional checksum in a separate "integrity

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

", in which case the file update strategy also implements allocation-on-write; this is controlled by a new "integrity" attribute applicable to both files and directories. If nevertheless file data or metadata becomes corrupt, the file can be deleted without taking the whole volume offline. As a result of built-in resiliency, administrators do not need to periodically run error-checking tools such as

CHKDSK In computing, CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a system tool and command in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and related operating systems. It verifies the file system integrity of a volume and at ...

when using ReFS. ;Compatibility with existing APIs and technologies: ReFS does not require new system APIs and most file system filters continue to work with ReFS volumes. ReFS supports many existing Windows and NTFS features such as

BitLocker BitLocker is a full volume encryption feature included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with Windows Vista. It is designed to protect data by providing encryption for entire volumes. By default, it uses the AES encryption algorithm in ...

encryption,

Access Control Lists In computer security, an access-control list (ACL) is a list of File-system permissions, permissions associated with a system resource (object). An ACL specifies which User (computing), users or Process (computing), system processes are granted acc ...

, USN Journal, change notifications,

symbolic links In computing, a symbolic link (also symlink or soft link) is a file whose purpose is to point to a file or directory (called the "target") by specifying a path thereto. Symbolic links are supported by POSIX and by most Unix-like operating syst ...

, junction points, mount points, reparse points, volume snapshots, file IDs, and oplock. ReFS seamlessly integrates with

Storage Spaces The transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8 introduced a number of new features across various aspects of the operating system. These include a greater focus on optimizing the operating system for touchscreen-based devices (such as tablet compute ...

, a

storage virtualization In computer science, storage virtualization is "the process of presenting a logical view of the physical storage resources to" a host computer system, "treating all storage media (hard disk, optical disk, tape, etc.) in the enterprise as a singl ...

layer that allows data mirroring and striping, as well as sharing storage pools between machines. ReFS resiliency features enhance the mirroring feature provided by Storage Spaces and can detect whether any mirrored copies of files become corrupt using background

data scrubbing Data scrubbing is an error correction technique that uses a background task to periodically inspect main memory or storage for errors, then corrects detected errors using redundant data in the form of different checksums or copies of data. Data ...

process, which periodically reads all mirror copies and verifies their checksums then replaces bad copies with good ones. Some NTFS features are not supported in ReFS, including object IDs, short names,

file compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...

, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions,

hard link In computing, a hard link is a directory entry (in a directory-based file system) that associates a name with a file. Thus, each file must have at least one hard link. Creating additional hard links for a file makes the contents of that file acc ...

extended attributes Extended file attributes are file system features that enable users to associate computer files with metadata not interpreted by the filesystem, whereas regular attributes have a purpose strictly defined by the filesystem (such as permissions or ...

, and

disk quota A disk quota is a limit set by a system administrator that restricts certain aspects of file system usage on modern operating systems. The function of using disk quotas is to allocate limited disk space in a reasonable way. Types of quotas There ...

Sparse file In computer science, a sparse file is a type of computer file that attempts to use file system space more efficiently when the file itself is partially empty. This is achieved by writing brief information (metadata) ''representing'' the empty block ...

s are supported. Support for named streams is not implemented in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, though it was later added in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. ReFS does not itself offer

data deduplication In computing, data deduplication is a technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. Successful implementation of the technique can improve storage utilization, which may in turn lower capital expenditure by reducing the overall amou ...

. Dynamic disks with mirrored or striped volumes are replaced with mirrored or striped storage pools provided by Storage Spaces. In Windows Server 2012, automated error-correction with integrity streams is only supported on mirrored spaces; automatic recovery on parity spaces was added in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Booting from ReFS is not supported either.

IIS 8.0

Windows Server 2012 includes version 8.0 of

Internet Information Services Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NNTP. ...

(IIS). The new version contains new features such as

SNI SNI may refer to: Science and technology * Substitution nucleophilic internal, a chemistry reaction mechanism * Swedish Standard Industrial Classification, a Swedish economic classification system * Server Name Indication, an extension to the ...

, CPU usage caps for particular websites, centralized management of SSL certificates,

WebSocket WebSocket is a computer communications protocol, providing full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection. The WebSocket protocol was standardized by the IETF as in 2011. The current API specification allowing web applications ...

support and improved support for NUMA, but few other substantial changes were made.

Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0

Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this purpose, while t ...

has new functions such as Adaptive Graphics (progressive rendering and related techniques), automatic selection of TCP or UDP as transport protocol,

multi touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CERN, MIT, University of ...

support, DirectX 11 support for vGPU,

USB redirection Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

supported independently of vGPU support, etc. A "connection quality" button is displayed in the RDP client connection bar for RDP 8.0 connections; clicking on it provides further information about connection, including whether UDP is in use or not.

Scalability

Windows Server 2012 supports the following maximum hardware specifications. Windows Server 2012 improves over its predecessor Windows Server 2008 R2:

System requirements

Windows Server 2012 runs only on

processors. Unlike older versions, Windows Server 2012 does not support

. Upgrades from Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are supported, although upgrades from prior releases are not.

Editions

Windows Server 2012 has four editions: Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter.

Reception

Reviews of Windows Server 2012 have been generally positive. Simon Bisson of ''

ZDNet ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication. Hist ...

'' described it as "ready for the datacenter, today," while Tim Anderson of

The Register ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...

said that "The move towards greater modularity, stronger automation and improved virtualisation makes perfect sense in a world of public and private clouds" but remarked that "That said, the capability of Windows to deliver obscure and time-consuming errors is unchanged" and concluded that "Nevertheless, this is a strong upgrade overall." ''InfoWorld'' noted that Server 2012's use of Windows 8's panned "Metro" user interface was countered by Microsoft's increasing emphasis on the Server Core mode, which had been "fleshed out with new depth and ease-of-use features" and increased use of the "practically mandatory" PowerShell. However, Michael Otey of

Windows IT Pro ''Windows IT Pro'' was a trade publication and web site owned by Informa serving the information needs of IT professionals working with the Microsoft Windows platform. The magazine's editorial offices were located in Ft. Collins, Colorado, US ...

expressed dislike with the new Metro interface and the lack of ability to use the older desktop interface alone, saying that most users of Windows Server manage their servers using the graphical user interface rather than PowerShell. Paul Ferrill wrote that "Windows Server 2012 Essentials provides all the pieces necessary to provide centralized file storage, client backups, and remote access," but Tim Anderson contended that "Many businesses that are using SBS2011 and earlier will want to stick with what they have", citing the absence of

Exchange Exchange may refer to: Physics *Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States * Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community * ...

, the lack of ability to synchronize with Active Directory Federation Services and the 25-user limit, while Paul Thurott wrote "you should choose Foundation only if you have at least some in-company IT staff and/or are comfortable outsourcing management to a Microsoft partner or solution provider" and "Essentials is, in my mind, ideal for any modern startup of just a few people."

Windows Server 2012 R2

A second release, Windows Server 2012 R2, which is derived from the

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...

codebase, was

on August 27, 2013 and became generally available on October 18, 2013, by

. A service pack, formally designated Windows Server 2012 R2 Update, was released in April 2014.

Extended Security Updates

Microsoft Announced in July 2021 they will distribute Extended Security Updates for SQL Server 2012, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2, for a maximum of 3 years after the end of Extended Support date. The first year of ESU for SQL Server 2012 will last until July 11, 2023, the second year will last until July 9, 2024, the third and final year will last until July 8, 2025. For Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 the first year of ESU support will last until October 8, 2024, the second year will last until October 14, 2025, the third and final year will last until October 13, 2026. This will mark the final end of the Extended Security Updates support for Windows 8 codebase after 14 years, 2 month and 12 days.

End of support

Microsoft originally planned to end mainstream support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on January 9, 2018 and end extended support on January 10, 2023, but in order to provide customers the standard transition lifecycle timeline, Microsoft extended Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 support in March 2017 by 9 months. With a final set end date, Windows Server 2012 reached the end of mainstream support on October 9, 2018 and Extended Support will end on October 10, 2023. That will mark the final end of the Windows 8 codebase after 11 years, 2 month and 9 days. Extended Security Updates (ESU) program will allow users to purchase security updates after that date for 3 years.

Notes

References

External links

*
Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012
on TechNet
Windows Server 2012 R2
on

Windows Server 2012
on

Tutorials and Lab Manual Articles of Windows Server 2012 R2
{{Authority control Windows Server X86-64 operating systems 2012 software