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Server Core changes for Beta 3

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Sorry for the delays between postings lately, working on Beta 3 has been keeping us all busy. Today I’m going to talk briefly about some of the changes and additions we have made to the Server Core installation option for Beta 3. For those of you with access to the recently released build, you’ll see these things in the build. (Note a few of these were in the IDS builds leading up to Beta 3 and covered in my January 5th posting. However, for completeness I’m including everything here.)

 

New Roles

  • Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS, formerly ADAM)
  • Print Server
  • Media Services

 

New Optional features

  • WINS
  • QoS (Qwave)

 

Command line changes

  • We have removed a few options from scregedit.wsf since there are better command line solutions. For example, enabling Windows Error Reporting now has a command line tool serverweroptin.exe
  • Scregedit.wsf now has a /cli switch which dumps out a long list of various command line ways to do things, such as setting your pagefile. Most of these have been covered in my blog, but now they are available on the box.
  • Oclist.exe is included, which will list all the packages to use with ocsetup.exe to add/remove a role or feature. This also tells you if something is installed or not.

 

Tool changes

  • Notepad File|Open, Save, and Save As now work (anyone recognize those dialog boxes?)
  • Regedit.exe is now included

 

Let me know what you think once you get the bits and have a chance to give it a try.

 

I’m going to predict right now that my next posting will not, unfortunately, be until some time in early May.

 

Andrew

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Ok guys, One of the biggest things I have been trying to find about Server Core is if it Supports .Net Services?  I would absolutely love this product and by tons of it if it would.  :) Take Care, Chris

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    It would be great if we would get something a little nicer for setting screen res. Also, it appears that the hardware acceleration reg key - Acceleration.Level doesn't help much when it is set manually on core, i.e. when using vmware with non-core, if you start with no accel and switch to full accel (reg key goes from 5 to 0) the mouse experience is night and day better. I found the setting for not dragging full windows and set that and it helps, but the mouse experience is still bouncy.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hello! What about antivirus programs? Is there any way to install them on the Server Core? If I enable the file server role, it could be useful to have an antivirus and a backup agent. Should I really backup and scan from a network location? What about the "on-demand" scan? Thanks in advance for your answer!

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Does Server Core use less resources, making it more suitable as a base OS for Virtual Server?

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Server Core just ROCKS!  It resolves many of the config mgmt issues that have plagued us - "Jr Admins " making seemingly small changes or not following change mgmt procedures.  "Who changed this?"  Core PREVENTS most accidents - if you don't type in the command right, it doesn't work - plain and simple.   We have SAV 10.x running as Andrew mentioned, using MSIEXEC - even the GUI pops ups to verify the def date, etc. Light-weight - once you get it set, it just hums and you don't have to worry about people making an edit, but not reallizing it, and then clicking OK, thinking they've cancelled out.   CORE RULES!!! P.S. I have had some issues and i've bugged them all.  See you all at TechED.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Thanks for very useful information. I am also looking forward to failover clustering in Server Core. Is there any information available on that? Will it be supporting creation of custom cluster resource dll? What about cluster administrator extension dll? Any information around this will be great. Thanks. Regards, Shailesh

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Yep thanks, I know how to do it through reg entries, my comment was that I wish there were a cleaner way of doing it.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    >>>We are well aware of the desire to have PowerShell on Server Core. In Longhorn you can remotely manage Server Core using PowerShell by using WMI calls. We are working towards a complete solution. Want to add that for some roles such as AD DC and ADAM you can use PowerShell and AD cmdlets to manage the directory remotely from any computer in your network: http://dmitrysotnikov.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/how-powershell-can-manage-longhorn-core/ In some cases (when this is indeed a domain controller and you are indeed going to manage the users, groups, OUs, computer accounts, etc.) this might be a better idea than trying to login to the DC interactively and run all commands locally.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    It's a real shame that Microsoft did not fix the underlying problems with Server Core so as to include PowerShell as part of this important server role.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Just used regedit today, thx for adding this!