Includes full set of Windows Server 2012 features

Includes basic server features such as file and print services and application support.

Server Core included in these editions:

Is there a Server 2012 build supporting Itanium processors?

Editions of Server 2012 supporting Hyper-V

Maximum Foundation edition users

Designed for small businesses.

Maximum Essentials edition users

Limited to one physical or virtual
server instance.

Includes nearly all Standard and Datacenter features, except Server Core, Hyper-V, and
Active Directory Federation Services.

Includes full set of
Server 2012 features.

Differs from Datacenter only in
num of VM instances permitted by license.

Available only through volume licensing and bundled OEMs.

Designed for large powerful servers.

Server edition license restriction: POSE - 1, VOSE - unlimited.

Server edition license restriction: POSE - 1, VOSE - 2.

Server edition license restriction: POSE - 1, or VOSE - 1 but not both.

Server edition license restriction: POSE - 1, VOSE - 0.

Designed for servers with up to 64 processors

Has fault-tolerance features such as hot add processor support.

Server 2012 has support for this server edition.

Reduced version of the operating system designed for small businesses.

Server edition includes no virtualization rights.