The new enterprise operating system Windows Server 2022 receives 10 years of product support in the form of support and updates from Microsoft and has now been released in the three versions Windows Server 2022 Standard, Datacenter and Datacenter Azure Edition that can be tried out for 180 days.
Windows Server 2022 is based on Windows 10
The latest version of Windows Server reports as version 21H2, which corresponds to the upcoming feature update of Windows 10, on which the updated enterprise operating system is based. Visually, the new Windows Server is still based on Windows 10 and not on Windows 11.
The Register website has already viewed the evaluation copy, which anyone can try free of charge for 180 days. After the installation, Windows Server 2022 Standard reports as Build 20348 (“21H2”) with the familiar Windows 10 desktop – including tiles in the start menu.
The Enterprise operating system Intended for new roles in the future, as it comes with an extended feature set.
- DNS-over-HTTPS for DNS resolution
- AES-256-GCM/CCM encryption for SMB
- Nested virtualization on current processors from the AMD Epyc and Intel Xeon product series
- Hyper-V platform in virtual machines
- Improved Kubernetes for Azure
- Extended container functions
In addition the Chromium-based Edge completely replaces Internet Explorer and the “old” Edge browser based on the proprietary HTML renderer EdgeHTML in the enterprise sector for the first time.
Exclusive features for the Azure Edition
However, some of the new functions are exclusively reserved for the Azure edition of Windows Server 2022 and the Azure Stack HCI, a subscription version of the server operating system, and are not found in the Standard and Datacenter versions.
The exclusive functions include Hotpatch for Windows Server and VMs, with which the administrator can apply the updates and patches without restarting, and SMB via the QUIC network protocol, which also entails consistent encryption of metadata.
The Admin Center, which was already released in April 2018 for all users and administrators of Windows Server, has been further improved with Windows Server 2022 and should make the administration of installations without a desktop easier.
Windows Server 2022 should support a maximum of 48 terabytes of RAM, 2,048 logical processor cores and up to 64 physical CPU sockets.
Support until October 2026 and 2031
The regular product support, the so-called mainstream support, for Windows Server 2022 extends until October 13, 2026, center As Long Term Support (LTS), support can be extended until October 14, 2031.
The 180-day evaluation copy of Windows Server 2022 can be downloaded directly from Microsoft.