Switch Server Core and Server with a GUI

Switching between Server Core and Server with a GUI

How you administer your servers can depend on whether you have Server Core or Server with GUI installed. But, it is easy to switch between the two with Windows PowerShell.

Reasons to switch between Server Core and Server with a GUI

There are several scenarios where you might want to switch between administration modes.

• You need to troubleshoot or make changes that are not possible at a command prompt or with the remote GUI.
• You are not comfortable with the command line tools or prefer to use the Server Manager tools for configuring a server.
• You have finished configuring the server with the GUI and now will only make minor changes which can be made remotely.
• You would like to reduce the number of files and image size of the server.

Switching Between Server Core and the GUI

In this Try It you will practice using Windows PowerShell to switch between Server Core and Server with GUI.

1. Login to your domain as Administrator with password Pa$$w0rd.
2. At a PowerShell prompt type: Get-WindowsFeature. Try to begin using the Tab key to autocomplete commands.
3. Review the User Interfaces and Infrastructure option. Notice the Server-Gui-Shell and Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra features are installed. This is a Server with GUI computer.
4. To remove the GUI features type: Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra
5. Wait for the features to be uninstalled and restart the server: Restart-Computer [It can take between 10 to 15 minutes to complete this.]
6. Login to SERVER as Administrator with the password Pa$$w0rd.
7. You are now presented with only a command window. This is a Server Core machine.
8. Type powershell. The PS prompt appears.
9. To change to the Server with GUI option type: Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra
10. Notice the Warning message that you must restart this computer to finish the installation process.
11. After rebooting verify Server Manager is available.

Experiment as you like with adding only the Minimal Server Interface (Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra) feature. This feature provides an alternative feature set between Server Core and Server with GUI.