Microsoft Windows Server
Compare features in Windows Server versions
Performance and scalability
Feature description | Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter | Windows Server 2016 Standard and Datacenter |
| Physical (host) memory support | Up to 4 TB per physical server | Up to 24 TB per physical server (6x) |
Physical (host) logical processor support | Up to 320 LPs | Up to 512 LPs |
Virtual machine memory support | Up to 1 TB per virtual machine | Up to 12 TB per virtual machine (12x) |
Virtual machine virtual processor support | Up to 64 VPs per virtual machine | Up to 240 VPs per virtual machine (3.75x) |
Security
| Level of support key
|
Feature description | Windows Server 2008 R2 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 2016 |
| Shielded Virtual Machines |  | |  |
| Just Enough Administration | | | |
| Just-in-Time Administration |  | | |
| Credential Guard | | | |
| Remote Credential Guard | | | |
| Device Guard | | | |
| AppLocker | | | |
| Windows Defender | | | |
| Control Flow Guard | | | |
| Enhanced threat detection | | | |
Software-defined datacenter: Compute
| Level of support key
|
Limited support 
Fully supportedFeature description | Windows Server 2008 R2 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 2016 |
| Cluster OS Rolling Upgrade | | | |
| Linux and FreeBSD workloads | | | |
| Hot add and remove for disk, memory, and network | | | |
| RDS RemoteFX vGPU | | | |
| Server management tools | | | |
| Nano Server installation option | | | |
| VM Load Balancing | | | |
Software-defined datacenter: Networking
| Level of support key
|
Feature description | Windows Server 2008 R2 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 2016 |
| Network Controller | | | |
| Microsegmentation | | | |
| Software Load Balancer | | | |
Software-defined datacenter: Storage
| Level of support key
|
Feature description | Windows Server 2008 R2 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 2016 |
| Storage Spaces Direct | | | |
| Storage Quality of Service | | | |
| Data deduplication | | | |
| Storage Replica | | | |
| Storage health monitoring | | | |
| High performance NVMe device support | | | |
| Persistent Memory for maximun Application Performance | | | |
| Scale Out File Server | | | |
| VM Storage Resiliency | | | |
Cloud-ready application platform
| Level of support key
|
Feature description | Windows Server 2008 R2 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 2016 |
| Windows Server containers | | | |
| Hyper-V containers | | | |
| Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration | | | |
| Windows PowerShell 5.1 | | | |