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Server 2008 R2 transformed into Windows 7 Client

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I work as a consultant so I touch a lot of technologies. I find it very handy to have a Hyper-V system so that I can choose from a large number of test clients across both 32 and 64 bit. The result is Server 2008 R2 installed on my laptop. The only thing I really need from the server install is the Hyper-V functionality, so after installation completes, I immediately take a long list of steps to get most of the client behavior back. I was unable to find a comprehensive list of these steps for Windows Server R2 so decided to create one…

From the Start Menu -> Administrative Tools -> Server Manager, install the following roles and features…

Roles:

  • Add the Hyper-V role
  • Add the “Windows Search Service” role under “File Services” - this will enable fast search through explorer / mail items / etc.

Features:

  • Add “Wireless LAN service” – without this, you will not be able to connect through your wireless network adapter.
  • Add the “Desktop Experience”
  • Add the “.NET Framework 3.5.1 features”
  • Add the “Quality Windows Audio Video Experience”
  • Add the “XPS Viewer” (if needed)
  • Add “Bitlocker Drive Encryption” (if needed)

Click on the root Server Manager node in the Server Manager tree view:

Disable the IE Enhanced Security Configuration (optional - do this at your own risk)

One of the drawbacks of having a Hyper-V server on your laptop is you lose the ability to put the machine into the ‘sleep’ low power state. This is specifically due to the hypervisor, not Windows Server 2008 R2 so if you opt to boot without the hypervisor, this state becomes available to you again. You can use the BCDEdit boot utility to setup a boot option enabling you to start the machine without the hypervisor so that you can specifically choose to boot into the hypervisor when you need Hyper-V functionality:

BCDEdit:

  • Start a command window as administrator
  • Clone your existing BCD boot settings so you can boot into either configuration <bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Hyper-V Off">
  • You will get output similar to the following: “The entry was successfully copied to {0e448378-857f-11e0-b3b3-d8d3859a8e19}” <copy the highlighted section>
  • Enter the following command: <BCDEdit –set {0e448378-857f-11e0-b3b3-d8d3859a8e19} hypervisorlaunchtype off> using the GUID you copied from the last step

Power Settings:

  • Go into your laptop power settings and make sure sleep enabled in power settings. You can access power settings by right clicking the battery icon on the right side of your taskbar.

Note: The sleep option may not show up on start menu, but will react to hardware power settings. So if you configure your machine to sleep when the power button is pressed in your power plan (configured in Power Options) this will work.

Turn on Aero Glass:

  • From the start menu -> Administrative Tools -> Services, scroll down to the ‘themes’ service, right click on it and choose properties. Start the service and set the startup type to ‘automatic’
  • Right click on the desktop and choose ‘Personalize’. Select an Aero Theme (probably Windows 7).
  • From the start menu, right click on “Computer” and choose “Properties”. From the “System Properties” dialog, choose the “Advanced” tab. Click “Settings” from the Performance section. In the “Visual Effects” tab, change to “Adjust for best appearance”.

Change Performance Settings to match the client version:

  • From the start menu, right click on “Computer” and choose “Properties”. From the “System Properties” dialog, choose the “Advanced” tab. Click “Settings” from the Performance section. In the “Advanced” tab, change ‘Adjust for best performance of:’ setting to “Programs”

Another annoying thing about running Server on a laptop is that every time you shutdown the computer, the system pops up a dialog demanding that you tell it why you are shutting it down. Take the following steps to turn this behavior off:

  • From the Start Menu, type “gpedit.msc” in the search box and hit enter.
  • In the Local Group Policy Editor tree view go to Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->System node. Scroll through the settings in the left pane to find the “Display Shutdown Event Tracker” setting. Double click on this and change it to “disabled”.

I believe that at this point your Server 2008 R2 machine will be as close to a Windows 7 Client as possible. If there are any tricks that I missed, please let me know and I will add them.