On January 8, 2009 Microsoft officially announced the beta release of the Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Release 2 (R2) OS, aka, Microsoft Windows Server 7. Support information will be posted in this forum to help you deploy this release of the next version of the Microsoft Windows® OS on Dell™ PowerEdge™ server platforms.

On May 5, 2009 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 release candidate became publicly available.

On July 27, 2009 Microsoft announced Release to Manufacturing (RTM) for Windows Server 2008 R2.

On August 10, 2009 Dell announced support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. (Press release).

On December 28, 2009 Dell OpenManage 6.2 was released, which provides full support for Windows Server 2008 R2 - all newer versions of Dell OpenManage support WS08R2.

Topic Name Quick Links

Windows Server 2008 R2 for Dell PowerEdge Systems Important Information Guide	Major Peripherals Support Status
Resource Guide for Windows Server 2008 R2 Early Adopters	Resolution for iSCSI Target not Recognized when Deploying Windows Server 2008 R2
A guide to using Windows Server 2008 R2 native VHD support	Cluster Shared Volumes – Effective Virtual Machine Migration
Windows Server 2008 R2 - WinRE	Automatic Windows OS Activation in Hyper-V

More Detailed Topic Links

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Site – The official Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 site, which provides an overview of R2, the reviewer's guide, feature introduction, and release download.
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Reviewer's Guide – First published during WinnHEC 2008, it is designed to provide a technical overview of the new and improved features in Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Changes in Functionality from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 R2 (Beta) – The Windows Server 2008 R2 OS includes changes to Windows Server 2008 features and technologies that help enhance the security of computers running Windows Server 2008 R2, increase productivity, and reduce administrative overhead. The following topics describe some of these features and technologies.