Windows Server 2016 is the eighth release 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 ...

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 s ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

developed by

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, Washingt ...

as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was developed concurrently with

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...

and is the successor to the Windows 8.1-based

Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 R2, codenamed "Windows Server 8.1" or "Windows Server Blue", is the seventh version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was unveiled on June 3, 2013 ...

. The first early preview version (Technical Preview) became available on October 1, 2014 together with the first technical preview of System Center. Windows Server 2016 was released on September 26, 2016 at Microsoft's Ignite conference and broadly released for retail sale on October 12, 2016. It has three successors:

Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2019 is the ninth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the second version of the server operating system based on the Windows 10 platform, after ...

Windows Server 2022 Windows Server 2022 or Windows Server 2022 Edition is the tenth and latest major long term servicing channel (LTSC) release of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was anno ...

, and the Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel, which excludes the

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

and many older components.

Features

Windows Server 2016 has a variety of new features, including *

Active Directory Federation Services Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), a software component developed by Microsoft, can run on Windows Server operating systems to provide users with single sign-on access to systems and applications located across organizational boundaries. ...

: It is possible to configure AD FS to authenticate users stored in non-AD directories, such as X.500 compliant Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories and SQL databases. *

Windows Defender Microsoft Defender Antivirus (formerly Windows Defender) is an anti-malware component of Microsoft Windows. It was first released as a downloadable free anti-spyware program for Windows XP and was shipped with Windows Vista and Windows 7. It ha ...

: Windows Server Antimalware is installed and enabled by default without the GUI, which is an installable Windows feature. *

Remote Desktop Services Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to initiate and control an interactive session on a remote computer or virtual machine ...

: Support for

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

4.4 and

OpenCL OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), digital signal processors (DSPs), field-prog ...

1.1, performance and stability improvements; MultiPoint Services role (see

Windows MultiPoint Server Windows MultiPoint Server is an operating system based on Microsoft Windows Server using Remote Desktop Services technology to host multiple simultaneous independent computing stations or terminals connected to a single computer ( multiseat comp ...

) * Storage Services: Central Storage QoS Policies; Storage Replicas (storage-agnostic, block-level, volume-based, synchronous and asynchronous replication using SMB3 between servers for

disaster recovery Disaster recovery is the process of maintaining or reestablishing vital infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster, such as a storm or battle.It employs policies, tools, and procedures. Disaster recovery focuses on t ...

). Storage Replica replicates blocks instead of files; files can be in use. It's not multi-master, not one-to-many and not transitive. It periodically replicates snapshots, and the replication direction can be changed. *

Failover Clustering High-availability clusters (also known as HA clusters, fail-over clusters) are groups of computers that support server applications that can be reliably utilized with a minimum amount of down-time. They operate by using high availability soft ...

: Cluster operating system rolling upgrade, Storage Replicas * Web Application Proxy: Preauthentication for HTTP Basic application publishing, wildcard domain publishing of applications, HTTP to HTTPS redirection, Propagation of client IP address to backend applications * IIS 10: Support for

HTTP/2 HTTP/2 (originally named HTTP/2.0) is a major revision of the HTTP network protocol used by the World Wide Web. It was derived from the earlier experimental SPDY protocol, originally developed by Google. HTTP/2 was developed by the HTTP Working ...

* Windows PowerShell 5.1 * Windows Server Containers

Networking features

DHCP 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 ...

: As Network Access Protection was deprecated in Windows Server 2012 R2, in Windows Server 2016 the DHCP role no longer supports NAP *

DNS 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 client: Service binding – enhanced support for computers with more than one network interface **

DNS Server A name server refers to the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal namespaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names (exampl ...

: DNS policies, new DDS record types (TLSA, SPF, and unknown records), new PowerShell cmdlets and parameters * Windows Server Gateway now supports

Generic Routing Encapsulation Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) is a tunneling protocol developed by Cisco Systems that can encapsulate a wide variety of network layer protocols inside virtual point-to-point links or point-to-multipoint links over an Internet Protocol netw ...

(GRE) tunnels *

IP address management IP address management (IPAM) is a methodology implemented in computer software for planning and managing the assignment and use of IP addresses and closely related resources of a computer network. It does not typically provide Domain Name System ...

(IPAM): Support for /31, /32, and /128 subnets; discovery of file-based, domain-joined DNS servers; new DNS functions; better integration of DNS, DHCP, and IP Address (DDI) Management * Network Controller: A new server role to configure, manage, monitor, and troubleshoot virtual and physical network devices and services in the datacentre * Hyper-V

Network virtualization In computing, network virtualization is the process of combining hardware and software network resources and network functionality into a single, software-based administrative entity, a virtual network. Network virtualization involves platform vi ...

: Programmable Hyper-V switch (a new building block of Microsoft's

software-defined networking Software-defined networking (SDN) technology is an approach to network management that enables dynamic, programmatically efficient network configuration in order to improve network performance and monitoring, making it more like cloud computing t ...

solution);

VXLAN Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) is a network virtualization technology that attempts to address the scalability problems associated with large cloud computing deployments. It uses a VLAN-like encapsulation technique to encapsulate OSI layer 2 Ether ...

encapsulation support; Microsoft Software Load Balancer interoperability; better IEEE Ethernet standard compliance.

Hyper-V

* Rolling

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 Wi ...

cluster update: Unlike upgrading clusters from Windows 2008 R2 to 2012 level, Windows Server 2016 cluster nodes can be added to a Hyper-V Cluster with nodes running Windows Server 2012 R2. The cluster continues to function at a Windows Server 2012 R2 feature level until all of the nodes in the cluster have been upgraded and the cluster functional level has been upgraded. * Storage quality of service (QoS) to centrally monitor end-to-end storage performance and create policies using Hyper-V and Scale-Out File Servers * New, more efficient binary virtual machine configuration format (.VMCX extension for virtual machine configuration data and the extension for runtime state data) * Production checkpoints * Hyper-V Manager: Alternate credentials support, down-level management,

WS-Management WS-Management (Web Services-Management) is a DMTF open standard defining a SOAP-based protocol for the management of servers, devices, applications and various Web services. WS-Management provides a common way for systems to access and exchange ...

protocol * Integration services for Windows guests distributed through

Windows Update Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers software updates for Win ...

* Hot add and remove for network adapters (for generation 2 virtual machines) and memory (for generation 1 and generation 2 virtual machines) * Linux

secure boot UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a set of specifications written by the UEFI Forum. They define the architecture of the platform firmware used for booting and its interface for interaction with the operating system. Examples of ...

* Connected Standby compatibility * Storage Resiliency feature of

is formed for detecting transitory loss of connectivity to VM storage. VMs will be paused until connectivity is re-established. * RDMA compatible Virtual Switch

Nano Server

Microsoft announced a new installation option, Nano Server, which offers a minimal-footprint headless version of Windows Server. It excludes the graphical user interface,

WoW64 In computing on Microsoft platforms, WoW64 (Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit) is a subsystem of the Windows operating system capable of running 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows. It is included in all 64-bit versions of Windows—including W ...

(support for 32-bit software) and

Windows Installer Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer, codename Darwin) is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. ...

. It does not support

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

login In computer security, logging in (or logging on, signing in, or signing on) is the process by which an individual gains access to a computer system by identifying and authenticating themselves. The user credentials are typically some for ...

, either locally or via

Remote Desktop Connection Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to initiate and control an interactive session on a remote computer or virtual machine ...

. All management is performed remotely via

Windows Management Instrumentation Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) consists of a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's impl ...

(WMI),

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-sourc ...

and Remote Server Management Tools (a collection of web-based GUI and command line tools). However, in Technical Preview 5, Microsoft has re-added the ability to administer Nano Server locally through PowerShell. According to Microsoft engineer Jeffrey Snover, Nano Server has 93% lower VHD size, 92% fewer critical security advisories, and 80% fewer reboots than Windows Server. Nano Server is only available to

Microsoft Software Assurance Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) is a Microsoft maintenance program aimed at business users who use Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and other server and desktop applications. The core premise behind SA is to give users the ability to spread ...

customers and on cloud computing platforms such as

Microsoft Azure Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...

and

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide ...

. Starting with the new feature release of Windows Server version 1709, Nano Server can only be installed inside a container host.

Development

Microsoft has been reorganized by

Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella (, ; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. Before becoming CEO, ...

, putting the Server and System Center teams together. Previously, the Server team was more closely aligned with the Windows client team. The

Azure Azure may refer to: Colour * Azure (color), a hue of blue ** Azure (heraldry) ** Shades of azure, shades and variations Arts and media * ''Azure'' (Art Farmer and Fritz Pauer album), 1987 * Azure (Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell album), 2013 ...

team is also working closely with the Server team. In March 2017, Microsoft demonstrated an internal version of Server 2016 running on the

ARMv8-A ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...

architecture. It was reported that Microsoft was working with

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

Centriq and

Cavium Cavium was a fabless semiconductor company based in San Jose, California, specializing in ARM-based and MIPS-based network, video and security processors and SoCs. The company was co-founded in 2000 by Syed B. Ali and M. Raghib Hussain, who we ...

ThunderX2 chips. According to James Vincent of ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...

'', this decision endangers

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

's dominance of the server CPU market. However, later inquiry from Microsoft revealed that this version of Windows Server is only for internal use and only impacts subscribers of

service.

Preview releases

public beta 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 ...

version of Windows Server 2016 (then still called ''vNext'') branded as "Windows Server Technical Preview" was released on October 1, 2014; the technical preview builds are aimed toward enterprise users. The first Technical Preview was first set to expire on April 15, 2015 but Microsoft later released a tool to extend the expiry date, to last until the second tech preview of the OS in May 2015. The second beta version, "Technical Preview 2", was released on May 4, 2015. Third preview version, "Technical Preview 3" was released on August 19, 2015. "Technical Preview 4" was released on November 19, 2015. "Technical Preview 5" was released on April 27, 2016. Windows Server 2016 Insider Preview Build 16237 was released to Windows Insiders on July 13, 2017.

Public release

Windows Server 2016 was officially released at Microsoft's Ignite Conference on September 26, 2016. Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2016 is licensed by the number of

CPU core A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

s rather than number of

CPU socket In computer hardware, a CPU socket or CPU slot contains one or more mechanical components providing mechanical and electrical connections between a microprocessor and a printed circuit board (PCB). This allows for placing and replacing the centr ...

s—a change that has similarly been adopted by BizTalk Server 2013 and SQL Server 2014. The new licensing structure that has been adopted by Windows Server 2016 has also moved away from the Windows Server 2012/2012R2 CPU socket licensing model in that now the amount of cores covered under one license is limited. Windows Server 2016 Standard and Datacenter core licensing now covers a minimum of 8 core licenses for each physical processor and a minimum of 16 core licenses for each server. Core licenses are sold in packs of two with Standard Edition providing the familiar rights to run 2 virtualized OS environments. If the server goes over 16 core licenses for a 2 processor server additional licenses will now be required with Windows Server 2016.

Version history

Technical Preview

Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview, released on October 1, 2014, was the first beta version of the operating system made publicly available. Its version number was 6.4.9841.

Technical Preview 2

Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 2 was made available on May 4, 2015. Its version number was 10.0.10074. (A similar jump in the most significant part of the version number from 6 to 10 is seen in Windows 10.) Highlights of this version include: * Nano Server installation option * Hyper-V: hot add and remove memory and NIC; resilient virtual machines to keep running even when their cluster fabric fails * Rolling upgrades for Hyper-V and Storage clusters * Networking: Converged NIC across tenant and RDMA traffic; PacketDirect on 40G * Storage: Virtual Machine Storage Path resiliency; Storage Spaces Direct to aggregate Storage Spaces across multiple servers; Storage Replica * Security: Host Guardian Service, helping to keep trust and isolation boundary between the cloud infrastructure and guest OS layers; Just Enough Administration, restricting users to perform only specific tasks * Management: PowerShell Desired State Configuration; PowerShell Package Manager; Windows Management Framework 5.0 April Preview and DSC Resource Kit * Other: Conditional access control in AD FS; application authentication support for OpenID Connect and OAuth; full OpenGL support with RDS for VDI; Server-side support for

, including header compression, connection multiplexing and server push * Installation options: Minimal Server Interface was made default and renamed the Server installation option to “Server with local admin tools”.

Technical Preview 3

The third technical preview of Windows Server 2016 was made available on August 19, 2015. Its version number was 10.0.10514. Highlights of this version include: * Windows Server Containers * Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS): authentication of users stored in Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories * Installation options: The Server installation option had been renamed to “Server with Desktop Experience” having the shell and Desktop Experience installed by default. Due to the structural changes required to deliver the Desktop Experience on Server, it is no longer possible to convert from Server with Desktop Experience to Server Core or to convert Server Core up to Server with Desktop Experience.

Technical Preview 4

The fourth technical preview of the operating system was made available on November 19, 2015, one year and one month after the initial technical preview. Its version number was 10.0.10586. Its highlights include: * Nano Server supports the

and IIS server roles, as well as MPIO, VMM, SCOM, DSC push mode, DCB, Windows Server Installer, and the WMI provider for Windows Update. Its Recovery Console supports editing and repairing the network configuration. A Windows PowerShell module is now available to simplify building Nano Server images. * Hyper-V Containers encapsulates each container in a light weight virtual machine.

Technical Preview 5

The last technical preview of Windows Server 2016 was made available on April 27, 2016. Its version number was 10.0.14300. Its highlights include: * Mostly general refinements. Greater time accuracy in both physical and virtual machines * Container support adds performance improvements, simplified network management, and support for Windows containers on

* Nano Server: an updated module for building Nano Server images, including more separation of physical host and guest virtual machine functionality as well as support for different Windows Server editions. Improvements to the Recovery Console, including separation of inbound and outbound firewall rules as well as the ability to repair configuration of WinRM * Networking: traffic to new or existing virtual appliances can now be both mirrored and routed. With a distributed firewall and Network security groups, this enables dynamically segmented and secure workloads in a manner similar to

. One can deploy and manage the entire Software-defined networking (SDN) stack using System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Docker can be used to manage Windows Server container networking, and associate SDN policies not only with virtual machines but containers as well * Remote Desktop Services: a highly available RDS deployment can leverage Azure SQL Database for the RD Connection Brokers in high availability mode * Management: ability to run PowerShell.exe locally on Nano Server (no longer remote only), new Local Users & Groups cmdlets to replace the GUI, added PowerShell debugging support, and added support in Nano Server for security logging & transcription and JEA (Just Enough Administration) * Shielded Virtual Machines: ** New "Encryption Supported" mode that offers more protections than for an ordinary virtual machine, but less than "Shielded" mode, while still supporting vTPM, disk encryption, Live Migration traffic encryption, and other features, including direct fabric administration conveniences such as virtual machine console connections and Powershell Direct ** Full support for converting existing non-shielded Generation 2 virtual machines to shielded virtual machines, including automated disk encryption ** Shielded virtual machines are compatible with Hyper-V Replica

Release to manufacturing

Windows Server 2016 was released to manufacturing on September 26, 2016, bearing the version number of 10.0.14393 (same as

Windows 10 Anniversary Update Windows 10 Anniversary Update (also known as version 1607 and codenamed "Redstone 1") is the second major update to Windows 10 and the first in a series of updates under the Redstone codenames. It carries the build number 10.0.14393. This update, ...

). Microsoft added the following final touches: * Available for a 180-day evaluation * Fixed

Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

corruptions * Improved user experience and performance *

Windows Store apps Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps (formerly Windows Store apps and Metro-style apps) are applications that can be used across all compatible Microsoft Windows devices, including personal computers (PCs), tablets, smartphones, Xbox One, Mic ...

have been removed * Login screen now has a background * The

Windows Hello Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

feature has been added * Dark theme has been added

Semi-Annual Channel releases

Version 1709

Windows Server, version 1709 (version shared with

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

) was released on October 17, 2017. The release has dropped the Windows Server 2016 name and is just called Windows Server by Microsoft. It is offered to the

customers who have an active Windows Server 2016 license and has the same system requirements. This is the first Windows Server product to fall under the "Semi-Annual Channel" (SAC) release cadence. This product only features the Server Core and the Nano Server modes. Of the two, only the Server Core mode of the OS can be installed on a bare system. The Nano Server mode is only available as an operating system

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

Version 1803

Windows Server, version 1803 (version shared with Windows 10 April 2018 Update) is the second Semi-Annual Channel release of Windows Server. It is also the final version to be branched off the Server 2016 codebase, as the next release shares the version number 1809 with

References

External links

PluralSight: Windows Server vNext First Look – An introduction to the new features of the Windows Server vNext operating system

Our Server Journey – video session describing the path that Windows Server has taken from its creation to the current day and where it is going from here

Michael Pietroforte: Nano Server – Goodbye Windows Server?

Microsoft Windows Nano Server, the future of Windows Server?
{{Microsoft Windows family 2016 software Windows Server X86-64 operating systems