Which Windows 7 server counterpart was released by Microsoft?

The Windows 7 server counterpart released by Microsoft was Windows Server 2008 R2.

Windows Server 2008 R2 shared the same Windows NT 6.1 foundation as Windows 7 and reached general availability on October 22, 2009—the same day as its desktop counterpart. Microsoft presented it as the server edition aligned with Windows 7, while Windows Server 2008 had been based on Windows Vista.

The “R2” label means “Release 2,” but this was more than a minor update. It introduced improvements to Active Directory, Hyper-V virtualization, failover clustering, DirectAccess, and management tools. It also included Internet Information Services 7.5 and supported up to 256 logical processors.

A common mix-up is Windows Server 2012, which followed Windows Server 2008 R2 and was associated with Windows 8. Windows Server 2003 was much older, while Windows Server 2016 arrived several years later. Windows Server 2008 R2 was also Microsoft’s first server release to drop support for 32-bit processors.