Initial Configuration for the Windows Server 2008 Server Core
In a full version of Windows Server 2008 there is Initial Configuration Tasks that allows you to configure various things after a fresh install. However since Server Core is GUI-less or more like Shell-less and not entirely GUI-less, the various initial configuration tasks are to be done from the command-line or thru the few built-in cpls.
In next few posts, I will be showing you the basic configuration of out-of-box Server Core. Lets start with changing the Administrator’s password which does not happen during the installation. You may use the good-old net command to do that,
net user administrator *
or change it by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL and click Change Password.
You may also need to set the date, time and time zone, and there is a left-behind GUI cpl available for it.
control timedate.cpl
Above cpl will launch the normal Date and Time control panel for you to change the settings. The only other cpl included in Server Core is intl.cpl which allows you to change the keyboard layouts
