Category: Server Core
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Where’s my RSAT?
A close friend and former colleague recently gave me the nickname “Mr. No GUI.” Why? I am big believer in Windows Server Core. I do not believe there should be a GUI on a Windows Server unless it is being used as a desktop. That does not mean that we all have to become command…
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RSAT Tools
**DISCLOSURE: While I am contracted to Microsoft Corporation, I am not an employee. The articles that I write are not meant to represent the company, nor are they meant to represent me as an employee or spokesman for the company. As has always been the case, all articles on this website represent me and nobody…
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Domain Controller to the Core
**DISCLOSURE: While I am contracted to Microsoft Corporation, I am not an employee. The articles that I write are not meant to represent the company, nor are they meant to represent me as an employee or spokesman for the company. As has always been the case, all articles on this website represent me and nobody…
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Creating a Lab Domain in PowerShell
I am spending a lot of time in Microsoft 365 these days. Because of my new contract, I found myself needing to build a lab environment from scratch. Yes, I am working in Azure AD, but for my role I realized it would be help to have an on-premise Active Directory Domain Services environment, in…
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Change the Page in Command Line
Have you ever wondered what happens when you format a server (or any Windows system) with a small bootable drive, and a large secondary drive? Why would you? It shouldn’t matter, right? Recently a client of mine discovered different, when he formatted a server and then discovered that the Paging File was placed on the…
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Windows Server 2016: A pet peeve
Over the next few weeks, as I do my first production infrastructure implementation based on Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016, I am sure this list will grow longer. In the meantime, I have uncovered my first pet peeve in the new version. Don’t get me wrong, overall I like Server 2016… but to…
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Server Core on VMware
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…
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Server Core: Every bit the Full Server as the GUI is!
Microsoft introduced Server Core with Windows Server 2008, which means that it was the same kernel as Windows Vista. Now, nobody is going to stand up and sing the praises of Vista, but Server 2008 was a very solid OS. You may (or may not) remember that there was a campaign around Vista called ‘The WOW starts…
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Insanity Is…
We have all heard this quote before… and it is exactly true. However in your server environment, when you want things identical, then we would turn this phrase around: Insanity: Doing things manually over and over and expecting identical results. I have not spent a great deal of time learning PowerShell… but whenever I have…
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Step by Step: Adding the GUI to Windows Server Core
HELP! Mitch, you told me that I should learn Server Core and I am trying, but you also told me that it wasn’t a problem to add the GUI back into a Server Core machine if I really needed it. How do I do that? This is a question I have gotten a few times…
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Server Core Address Woes
From the files of “What the F@rk?!” Here’s a little gotcha that I’ve been wrestling with all afternoon. I hope this post can save some of you the frustration (exacerbated by jetlag) that I have been experiencing. I am configuring a bunch of virtual machines as domain controllers for the company I am consulting for…
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Creating a New AD Forest in Windows Server Core (Revisited)
Several years ago Steve Syfuhs and I sat down and figured out how to create a new Active Directory forest in Windows Server Core. It was an interesting experience, and even though I later gave rights to that article to the Canadian IT Pro Team (at the time it was Damir Bersinic) when you search…
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Windows Server 2012 Haiku
In 2009 there was a contest to write haiku about Windows Server 2008R2. On Monday I was in a meeting with a colleague who reminded me of this, and I went back to my blog to see if I could find my original entries (A Windows 2008 R2 Haiku!). It got me thinking… what would…
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From Server Core to GUI to… MinShell?
This post was originally written for the Canadian IT Pro Connection blog, and can be seen there at http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro. In Windows Server 2008 we were introduced to a revolutionary way to install Windows Server: Server Core. Server Core may look boring – there’s nothing to it except the command prompt – but to an IT…
The World According to Mitch 