First thing we need to understand here is that Power BI Desktop for Power BI Services and Power BI Desktop for Report Server are different. Power BI Desktop report server is very similar to Power BI Desktop. Power BI Desktop report server edition is also regularly updated.

We can run normal Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Desktop Report Server at the same time on our system.

Power BI report server is an on-premises technology. Power BI report server is used to host Power BI reports on enterprise level not on cloud. It is for those companies who are not yet ready to move to cloud-based technologies.

Power BI Report Server is included with any Power BI Premium licensing, and with SQL Server Enterprise.

We should use Power BI Desktop edition with report server to create reports if we want to host reports on report server, otherwise reports cannot be hosted on report server.

For this purpose, we will have two installation items:

1. Power BI Report Server

Download the latest edition of Power BI Report Server from this link: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/report-server/

2. Power BI Desktop Report Server edition

Two ways to download Power BI Desktop Report Server:

1. There will be an instance of Power BI Desktop installation with Report Server:

2. Microsoft Power BI Desktop (Optimizes for Power BI Report Server – January 2019) download link :  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55330

Click on Download

Depending on your computer select

and run Power BI Desktop set up Wizard

Once Installation is complete, we can see shortcut on our desktop:

Start with Power BI Desktop

One difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Desktop Report Server is that we don’t have Publish menu in tool box for Power BI Desktop for report server.

In Power BI Desktop:

In Power BI Desktop for report server:

Import data from Get data option for Power BI Desktop report server:

Create a line chart to draw Profit by Order date:

Now let’s save Report on Power BI Report Server:

Go to Save As > Select Power BI Report Server

To open report in Report Server:

Go to Open> select

Once our Report Server is configured, Report will be hosts on Power BI Report Server.

This was all about Power BI Desktop Optimized for Power BI Report Server. Hope this will help you to understand about Power BI Desktop for Report Server and why we need one different Desktop for report server.