Windows Server 2012 R2 Hardware Requirements

As with previous Windows versions, your hardware must meet certain requirements for Windows Server 2012 R2 to function properly. First of all, Windows Server 2012 R2 requires a 64-bit processor; Microsoft has discontinued 32-bit software with this release of Windows Server. Table 1.1 outlines the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for Windows Server 2012 R2 as provided by Microsoft:

 Table 1.1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Hardware Requirements

Component	Minimum Requirement	Microsoft Recommended
Processor	1.4 GHz	2 GHz or faster
Memory	512 MB RAM	2 GB RAM or greater
Available Disk Space	32 GB	40 GB or greater
Optical Drive	DVD-ROM drive	DVD-ROM drive
Display	Super VGA (800x600) monitor	XGA (1024x768) monitor

In addition, you must have the usual I/O peripherals, including a keyboard and mouse or compatible pointing device and a wired or wireless network interface card (NIC). If you can connect to a network location on which you have copied the contents of the Windows Server 2012 R2 DVD-ROM, you are not required to have a DVD-ROM drive on your computer. As with any other operating system installation, you will receive improved performance if you have a faster processor and additional memory on your system.
Further, when you install Windows Server 2012 R2 on an Itanium-based computer, you must have an Intel Itanium 2 processor and additional hard disk space. Computers with more than 16 GB RAM require additional disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files. With disk space at an all-time minimum cost, it is easy to acquire a high-capacity hard disk. You will certainly need plenty of disk space on a server that will be a domain controller in a large domain.
Microsoft recommends that you also perform the following actions before installing Windows Server 2012 R2:

• Disconnect uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices: If you are using a UPS, disconnect its serial or USB cable before installing Windows Server 2012 R2. However, note that you do not need to disconnect other USB devices such as external hard drives, printers, and so on.
• Back up data: Perform a complete backup of configuration information for your servers, especially network infrastructure servers such as DHCP servers. The backup should include the boot and system partitions as well as the system state data.
• Disable antivirus software: Antivirus software can interfere with operating system installation.
• Run the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool: This tool tests your computer’s RAM. For more information, refer to “Utility Spotlight: Windows Memory Diagnostic” at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.09.utilityspotlight.aspx?pr=blog.
• Provide mass storage drivers if needed: Save the driver file to appropriate media so that you can provide it during setup.
• Note that Windows Firewall is on by default: Server applications that require inbound connections will fail until you create inbound firewall rules that allow these connections. For more information, refer to “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Overview” at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831365.aspx.
• Prepare your Active Directory environment for Windows Server 2012 R2: Before adding a Windows Server 2012 R2 domain controller or updating an existing domain controller to Windows Server 2012 R2, prepare the domain and forest by running Adprep.exe. We discuss this tool in Chapter 13, “Installing Domain Controllers.”