Windows Server Image Iso
Edelira Longinotti
This ISO is only available on Windows Server 2022 and combines the previously separate Features on Demand and Language Packs ISOs, and can be used as a FOD and Language pack repository. To learn about Features on Demand, see Features on Demand. To learn about adding languages, see Add Languages.
Windows Server 2022 introduces advanced multi-layer security, hybrid capabilities with Azure, and a flexible application platform. As part of this release, we are bringing secured-core capabilities to help protect hardware, firmware, and Windows Server OS capabilities against advanced security threats. Secured-core server builds on technologies such as Windows Defender System Guard and Virtualization-based Security to minimize risk from firmware vulnerabilities and advanced malware. The new release also provides secured connectivity that introduces several new capabilities such as faster and more secure encrypted HTTPS connections, industry standard SMB AES 256 encryption and more.
Windows Server 2022 improves hybrid server management with significantly improved VM management, an enhanced event viewer, and many more new capabilities in Windows Admin Center. Furthermore, this release includes significant improvements to Windows containers, such as smaller image sizes for faster download, simplified network policy implementation and containerization tools for .NET applications.
Customers who download the full ISO will need to choose an edition and an installation option. This ISO evaluation is for the Datacenter and Standard editions. The Datacenter edition is the most complete edition and includes the new Datacenter-specific features (Shielded Virtual Machines, Storage Spaces Direct, and Software-Defined Networking) in addition to unlimited server virtualization.
Windows Server is the platform for building an infrastructure of connected applications, networks, and web services, from the workgroup to the data center. It bridges on-premises environments with Azure, adding additional layers of security while helping you modernize your applications and infrastructure.
Windows Server Essentials edition is a cloud-connected first server designed for small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices. If you are considering installing any version of Windows Server Essentials, we would encourage you to consider Microsoft 365.
Hyper-V Server provides a simple and reliable virtualization solution to help organizations improve their server utilization and reduce costs. The latest release of Hyper-V Server provides new and enhanced features that can help you deliver the scale and performance needs of your mission-critical workloads.
Windows Admin Center is a locally deployed, browser-based app for managing Windows servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure, as well as Windows 10 PCs. Giving you full control over all aspects of your server infrastructure, Windows Admin Center is particularly useful for managing servers on private networks that are not connected to the Internet.
Windows offers four container base images that users can build from. Each base image is a different type of the Windows or Windows Server operating system, has a different on-disk footprint, and has a different set of the Windows API set.
All Windows container base images are discoverable through Docker Hub. The Windows container base images themselves are served from mcr.microsoft.com, the Microsoft Container Registry (MCR). This is why the pull commands for the Windows container base images look like the following:
The MCR does not have its own catalog experience and is meant to support existing catalogs, such as Docker Hub. Thanks to Azure's global footprint and coupled with Azure CDN, the MCR delivers an image pull experience that is consistent and fast. Azure customers, running their workloads in Azure, benefit from in-network performance enhancements as well as tight integration with the MCR (the source for Microsoft container images), Azure Marketplace, and the expanding number of services in Azure that offer containers as the deployment package format.
Many Windows users want to containerize applications that have a dependency on .NET. In addition to the four base images described here, Microsoft publishes several Windows container images that come pre-configured with popular Microsoft frameworks, such as a the .NET framework image and the ASP .NET image.
The Windows Server image (3.1 GB) is slightly smaller in size from the Windows image (3.4 GB). The Windows Server image also inherits all the performance and reliability improvements from the Server Core image, has GPU support, and has no limits for IIS connections. To use the latest Windows Server image, you'll need a Windows Server 2022 installation. The Windows image is not available for Windows Server 2022.
Microsoft provides "insider" versions of each container base image. These insider container images carry the latest and greatest feature development in our container images. When you're running a host that is an insider version of Windows (either Windows Insider or Windows Server Insider), it is preferable to use these images. The following insider images are available on Docker Hub:
Windows Server Core and Nanoserver are the most common base images to target. The key difference between these images is that Nanoserver has a significantly smaller API surface. PowerShell, WMI, and the Windows servicing stack are absent from the Nanoserver image.
Nanoserver was built to provide just enough API surface to run apps that have a dependency on .NET core or other modern open source frameworks. As a tradeoff to the smaller API surface, the Nanoserver image has a significantly smaller on-disk footprint than the rest of the Windows base images. Keep in mind that you can always add layers on top of Nano Server as you see fit. For an example of this check out the .NET Core Nano Server Dockerfile.
Windows Server is the operating system that bridges on-premises environments with Azure services enabling hybrid scenarios and maximizing existing investments, including:
- The latest is security innovation including Secured-core to minimize risk from firmware vulnerabilities and advanced malware.
- Unique hybrid capabilities with Azure to extend your datacenter and maximize investments.
- File server security and performance increased with SMB AES-256 encryption and SMB on-the-fly compression.
- Azure Edition images with additional functionality optimized to run in Azure.
- Improvements to Windows container runtime such as cross-version compatibility and containerization tools for .NET, ASP.NET and IIS applications.
Windows Server 2022 is the latest Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release with five years of mainstream support + five years of extended support. Choose the image that is right for your application needs.
- Server with Desktop Experience includes all roles and a graphical user interface (GUI).
- Server Core omits the GUI for a smaller OS footprint.
- Azure Edition with Desktop Experience- includes additional new functionality such as Hotpatch, SMB over QUIC, extended network for Azure, and is optimized to run in Azure.
- Azure Edition Core - includes additional new functionality such as Hotpatch, SMB over QUIC, extended network for Azure, and is optimized to run in Azure.
Your use of the Windows Server images from Azure Marketplace Virtual Machine Gallery are provided to you for use with virtual machine instances under your Azure subscription which are governed by the Online Services Terms. Windows Server Azure edition can only be used on Azure. All Server images may be used under the Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server.
Almost every week I'm faced with this question from customers: Which Windows base container image is the right one for me? For that reason, I decided to write this blog post to help customers understand the differences between the three Windows container base images, its use cases, and pros and cons from each one.
Before we get started, it's important to note that in many cases, there is a framework image that leverages these images above. The most common examples are .Net Framework, ASP. Net, .Net (formerly .Net Core), among many others.
Base images are used (as the name suggests) as basis for the framework and application you want to host. They dictate which OS APIs are available for your application and it could be a large or a small set of APIs. The more APIs are available, the more binaries are needed, resulting in a larger base image. For that reason, when we started to produce these base images we had Server Core and Nano Server, with the Server image being added later to address scenarios not supported by the former images.
This is our smallest base container image. As mentioned above, this means less APIs available. For Nano Server, we focused on scenarios where developers will be writing new applications on which the framework can target the specific APIs of Nano Server. Examples of frameworks, languages, or apps that are supported on Nano Server are .Net Core (now called .Net), Apache, NodeJS, Phyton, Tomcat, Java runtime, JBoss, Redis, among others.
Once pulled and extracted, the Nano Server base image has around 290MB in size. That means its pull time is extremely fast, allowing for faster scale-up processes. The other side of this is the already mentioned requirement that only specific frameworks will be supported in this base image.
To provide some history, the Nano Server is actually based on a previously available Nano Server installation option. We discontinued this option a few years ago specifically to focus on the Nano Server base container image. Overall, the general question I recommend customers to ask when developing new applications is to always check if the Nano Server provides the necessary APIs for that application. If so, choose this image as the benefits of a smaller image are great.
In this case, the scenario expected is different than the Nano Server base image. The Server Core base container image is based on the Server Core installation. This image is focused on lift and shift scenarios, on which the expectation is to get the same application that was working on a VM and put it in a container - as is/no code changes. Of course there's a bunch of limitations here. For example, if the application did not work on Server Core already, it most likely won't work on the Server Core base container image.
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