Tag Archives: Windows Server 2012

Turning on and off GUI in Windows Server 2012

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When you install Windows Server 2012, you can choose between Server Core Installation and Server with a GUI. The Server with a GUI option is the Windows Server 2012 equivalent of the Full installation option available in Windows Server 2008 R2. The Server Core Installation option reduces the space required on disk, the potential attack surface, and especially the servicing requirements. In Windows Server 2012, you can freely switch between these options at any time, one approach might be to initially install the Server with a GUI option, use the graphical tools to configure the server, and then later switch to the Server Core Installation option.

To use PowerShell to switch between Server Core and Full Server with GUI

Full Server with GUI to Server Core

Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra -Restart

Server Core to Full Server with GUI

Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra,Server-Gui-Shell -Restart

Difference between Windows 8 Client Hyper-V and Server Hyper-V

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Windows 8 supports virtualization on the client OS to allow IT professionals and developers to use Hyper-V as a desktop operating system. If you are an IT Professional or developer that uses Windows Server as development operating environments, you should be excited about new client Hyper-V feature in Windows 8 and wonder what are some of the key differences and similarities between Windows 8 Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V?

Here are the some of the key differences in Windows 8 Client Hyper-V from Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V:

  • No Hyper-V Replica
  • No Hyper-V Network Virtualization
  • No Virtual Machine Live Migration (Requires Failover Clustering only in Windows Server)
  • No Shared Nothing Live Migration
  • No SR-IOV (You need server class hardware; appropriate firmware, etc; you won’t find this on desktops)
  • No Failover Clustering (Client doesn’t include Failover Clustering)
  • No Virtual Fiber Channel
  • No RemoteFX GPU Hardware Acceleration ( which requires RDV only in Windows Server)
  • Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) HW required

And the commonalities between Windows 8 Hyper-V & Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V

  • Virtual Machines created with Client Hyper-V are 100% compatible with Server Hyper-V
  • Client Hyper-V offers the same VM scale as Server
    • Up to 64 virtual processes per VM
    • Up to 64TB per virtual disk ( vhdx format )
    • Up to 1 TB of memory per VM.
  • Live Storage Migration is included
  • Support VHD Storage on SMB3 file shares
  • 100% PowerShell/WMI compatibility in management from Client to Server.
  • Client Hyper-V offers the full rich, open and extensible Hyper-V virtual switch.
  • QoS, bandwidth management and other advanced virtual switch capabilities are in there