If you ever have the need to install Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Core for security reasons, hardware limitations or whatever, then Core Configurator is your life safer!
Core Configurator is a simple GUI which brings together the most frequently used tools for easy administration of a Core server. It’s main features are:
- Product Licensing
- Networking Features
- DCPromo Tool
- ISCSI Settings
- Server Roles and Features
- User and Group Permissions
- Share Creation and Deletion
- Dynamic Firewall settings
- Display | Screensaver Settings
- Add & Remove Drivers
- Proxy settings
- Windows Updates (Including WSUS)
- Multipath I/O
- Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails
- JoinDomain and Computer rename
- Add/remove programs
- Services
- WinRM
- Complete logging of all commands executed
Core Configurator is free and open source. It can be downloaded from http://coreconfig.codeplex.com/
Installing Core Configurator
- Download either the ISO or the ZIP and connect it to your Windows 2008 R2 x64 Server Core installation (I am using the ISO for this example)
- Make sure that we are in the root of C:\ with the following command:
c:\
- Make a directory where all of the Core Configurator files will be copied over:
mkdir coreconfig
- With the CD/DVD in the drive (or mounted), we’ll copy over the contents of the disc to the folder we just created earlier:
copy d:\ c:\coreconfig
- Go into the directory were the files have been copied over to:
cd c:\coreconfig
- And start Core Configurator GUI:
Start_CoreConfig.wsf
N.B. If it asks to install PowerShell or any other additional software just allow it to install them to prevent any errors that might crop up later on.