2012 R2 Essentials Preview official download

Computer store news: Last year, Microsoft announced that it will stop the follow-up work of Windows Home Server, and will focus on the new Windows Server 2012 Essentials. This week, Microsoft announced the first major update to its small business server software product —— Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. Microsoft said in an official blog post that a public preview of the software is now available for download.

This R2 update will also include many new features, one of which is the ability to create a Windows Server Essentials virtual client in a Windows Server Essentials host. The wizard is manually set up via an IT administrator.

R2 also brings a new service state aggregation page and includes Office 365, Windows Azure Active Directory, Windows Intune, and Windows Azure Backup.

Microsoft also plans to upgrade the My Server app on Windows Phone and Windows 8 (late this year) to bring new features such as SharePoint Online libraries to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials.