Windows Server 2022 is the thirteenth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It was announced at Microsoft's Ignite event from March 2–4, 2021. It was released on August 18, 2021, almost 3 years after Windows Server 2019, and a few months before the Windows 11 operating system.
Windows Server 2022 is based on the "Iron" codebase, unlike Windows 10 21H2, which is based on the "Vibranium" codebase like its predecessor 20H2; this renders the updates between Windows 10 21H2 and Windows Server 2022 incompatible. Like its predecessor, Windows Server 2019, it requires x64 processors.
It was succeeded by Windows Server 2025 on November 1, 2024.
History Microsoft announced Windows Server 2022 on February 22, 2021, scheduled for March 2. On March 3, Microsoft started distributing preview builds on Windows Update. Windows Server 2022 reached general availability on August 18, 2021.
Features Windows Server 2022 has the following features:
Security Enhanced boot-time security via TPM 2.0 and System Guard (a component of Microsoft Defender Antivirus) Credential Guard Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI) UEFI Secure Boot Protection against malicious attacks via the DMA path DNS over HTTPS AES-256 encryption of SMB traffic SMB over QUIC instead of TCP
Storage Storage Migration Service (SMS) Compression of SMB traffic
Cloud Azure hybrid capabilities
Software Microsoft Edge
Editions
Essentials Only available through Microsoft OEM partners Intended for small businesses Supports a maximum of 25 users and 50 devices Requires no client access licenses (CALs)
Standard Intended for physical or weak VCC environments Only two virtual machines and one Hyper-V host are deemed usable.
Datacenter Intended for highly virtualized data centers and cloud environments
Azure Datacenter Designed for the Microsoft Azure platform
Hardware requirements +Minimum hardware requirements for Windows Server 2022HardwareMinimum requirement CPU1.4 GHz x86-64 processor RAM512 MB for Server Core or 2 GB for Server with Desktop Experience Hard disk spaceAt least 32 GB free space Display1024 x 768 pixels resolution (only required for certain features) Network A wireless adapter that supports DW802.11, or An Ethernet adapter capable of at least 1 Gbit per second throughput, or NIC card with a minimum bandwidth of 1 Gbit FirmwareUEFI 2.3.1c-based system and firmware that supports secure boot (only required for certain features) SecurityTrusted Platform Module 2.0 (only required for certain features)
References
External links