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Available build 
Confirmed build 
Unconfirmed build 
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Windows Server 2012 R2
Not to be confused with Windows Server 2012.
| Version of Microsoft Windows | |
 | |
 | |
| OS family | Windows NT |
|---|---|
| Version | 6.3 |
| Codename | Server Blue |
| Architecture | x64 |
| Latest build | 6.3.9600.17415 |
| Release date | 2013-10-18 |
| Support end | 2023-10-10 2026-10-13 (with Extended Security Updates) |
| Client counterpart | |
| Windows 8.1 | |
| Replaces | |
| Windows Server 2012 | |
| Replaced by | |
| Windows Server 2016 | |
Windows Server 2012 R2 is the server counterpart of Windows 8.1, which replaced Windows Server 2012 and was later succeeded by Windows Server 2016. It was released to manufacturing on 27 August 2013 and was released on 18 October of that year.
Editions[edit | edit source]
There are four editions of this operating system: Essentials, Foundation, Standard and Datacenter. As with Windows Server 2012, the Datacenter and Standard editions are feature identical, varying only based on licensing (particularly licensing of Hyper-V VMs). The Essentials edition has the same features as the Datacenter and Standard products, with some restrictions.
Changes[edit | edit source]
- Automated Tiering: Storage Spaces stores most frequently accessed files on fastest physical media.
- Deduplication for VHD: Reduces the storage space for VHD files with largely similar contents by storing the similar contents only once.
- Windows PowerShell v4, which now includes a Desired State Configuration (DSC) feature.
- Web Application Reverse Proxy.
- Integrated Office 365 support.
Hardware compatibility[edit | edit source]
This is the first version of Windows Server to drop support for processors without the CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW and LAHF/SAHF instructions, as attempting to boot on these processors will cause an UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR bugcheck.
Windows Server 2012 R2 is officially compatible with all Xeons released from 2006 to 2017 and all AMD Opterons with the instructions the OS requires. Later processors (1st gen Xeon Scalable and AMD EPYC) are not supported due to Windows Update being blocked on newer processors. There are patches that allow Windows Update to work on these processors.
List of known builds[edit | edit source]
Available build Confirmed build Unconfirmed build Fake build Milestone 1[edit | edit source]
Milestone 2[edit | edit source]
Milestone Preview[edit | edit source]
Pre-RTM[edit | edit source]
RTM[edit | edit source]
Update 1[edit | edit source]
Update 2[edit | edit source]
Update 3[edit | edit source]
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