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Windows Server 2012 R2

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Description

Windows Server 2012 R2 provides a wide range of new and enhanced features and capabilities spanning server virtualization, storage, software-defined networking, server management and automation, web and application platform, access and information protection, virtual desktop infrastructure, and more.

Benefits

At the heart of Microsoft’s Cloud OS, Windows Server helps customers transform the datacenter, taking advantage of technical advances and new hybrid cloud capabilities to increase resilience, simplify management, reduce cost, and speed delivery of services to the business.

Windows Server 2012 R2 is a proven, enterprise-class cloud and datacenter platform that can scale to run your largest workloads while enabling robust recovery options to protect against service outages. It helps accelerate time to value by simplifying your underlying infrastructure and allowing you to reduce cost by taking advantage of industry-standard hardware. Windows Server 2012 R2 helps you build, deploy and scale applications and web sites quickly, and gives you the flexibility to move workloads between on-premises environments and the cloud. It enables you to provide flexible, remote access to corporate resources while managing identities across your datacenter and federated into the cloud, and it helps you protect critical business information.

Languages

  • Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese,    Russian, Spanish

Editions

  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter on Microsoft Azure
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter | 64-bit ISO
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter | 64-bit VHD

Prerequisites

  1. Review Windows Server 2012 R2 release notes and system requirements.
  2. Register, then download and install. Windows Server 2012 R2 evaluation editions expire in 180 days.
  3. Receive email with resources to guide you through your evaluation.

Steps to Activate Software License 

  • Connect to the internet, which will allow the software licensing service to attempt activation
  • Telephone activation
  • Users with no internet connectivity can trigger the 10-day grace period by running the following commands from an elevated command prompt:
  1. Slmgr /rearm
  2. Shutdown –r

Supporting products 

  • Windows Server is the platform for building an infrastructure of connected applications, networks, and web services, from the workgroup to the data center. It bridges on-premises environments with Azure, adding additional layers of security while helping you modernize your applications and infrastructure.

    Get started with Windows Server: 2022 | 2019 | 2016 | 2012 R2

  • Windows Server Essentials edition is a cloud-connected first server designed for small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices. If you are considering installing any version of Windows Server Essentials, we would encourage you to consider Microsoft 365.

       Get started with Windows Server Essentials: 2019 | 2016 | 2012 R2  

      Learn more about Microsoft 365 for business

  • Hyper-V Server provides a simple and reliable virtualization solution to help organizations improve their server utilization and reduce costs. The latest release of Hyper-V Server provides new and enhanced features that can help you deliver the scale and performance needs of your mission-critical workloads.  

    Get started with Hyper-V Server: 2019 | 2016 | 2012 R2 | 2012

  • Windows Admin Center is a locally deployed, browser-based app for managing Windows servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure, as well as Windows 10 PCs. Giving you full control over all aspects of your server infrastructure, Windows Admin Center is particularly useful for managing servers on private networks that are not connected to the Internet.

    Get started with Windows Admin Center