[18] These include new virtualization capabilities (Live Migration, Cluster Shared Volumes using Failover Clustering and Hyper-V), reduced power consumption, a new set of management tools and new Active Directory capabilities such as a "recycle bin" for deleted objects.

IIS 7.5 has been added to this release which also includes updated FTP server services.

The DHCP server supports a large number of enhancements[20] such as MAC address-based control filtering, converting active leases into reservations or link layer based filters, DHCppP Name protection for non-Windows machines to prevent name squatting, better performance through aggressive lease database caching, DHCP activity logging, auto-population of certain network interface fields, a wizard for split-scope configuration, DHCP Server role migration using WSMT, support for DHCPv6 Option 15 (User Class) and Option 32 (Information Refresh Time).

The DHCP server runs in the context of the Network Service account which has fewer privileges to reduce potential damage if compromised.

Extended support ended on January 14, 2020, about ten years after the release of Windows Server 2008 R2.

[28] In August 2019, researchers reported that "all modern versions of Microsoft Windows" may be at risk for "critical" system compromise due to design flaws of hardware device drivers from multiple providers.

[34] Windows Server 2008 R2 was eligible for the paid ESU (Extended Security Updates) program.

The program provides an extra six years of security update support, until January 13, 2026.

[9][7][8][36] This will mark the final end of all security updates for the Windows NT 6.1 product line after 16 years, 5 months, and 22 days.

Dynamic Memory makes it possible for a VM to only allocate as much physical RAM as is needed temporarily for its execution.