The World According to Mitch

When I was a Virtual Technical Evangelist for Microsoft Canada I spent a lot of time telling you why you should use Server Core… especially if you were on Hyper-V.  Why?  You save resources.

It is now over two years since I turned in my Purple Badge, and I still think Server Core rocks.  In fact, when Windows Server 2016 comes out I will probably spend a lot of time telling you about the new Nano Server option that they are including in that version.  More on that to come.

Of course, I still like Hyper-V, but as an independent consultant I recognize (as I did quietly when I was with the Big Blue Machine) that the vast majority of the world is still running VMware for their enterprise-level server virtualization needs.  That does not change my opinion of Server Core… it still rocks, even on VMware.

Of course, in order to get the full benefits of the virtualized environment, a VMware machine requires the installation of the VMware Tools (as Hyper-V requires the installation of Integration Services).  With a Server with a GUI that is easy to do… but since Server Core is missing many of the hooks of the GUI, it has to be done from the command line.  Here’s how:

1. As you would with any other server, click Install VMware Tools

2. Connect to and log on to the virtual machine.  You will have to do this with Administrator credentials.

3. navigate to the mounted ISO (if you only have a single hard drive attached it will usually be D:)

4. type in the following command line: setup64.exe /S /v “/qn reboot=Y”

Once you have done this, the VMware tools will install, and your server will reboot.  Nothing to it!