Is there a GUI to manage Server Core ?

June 6, 2008

Yes there is. Inevitable as it was, we the System Admins like to accomplish easy tasks from the tip of our fingers, and do things in a graphical click-ing environment. You might have heard of this utility, which came out few months back called ‘Server Core Configurator’ by Guy Teverovsky. I had been reading about the bugs and fixed at Guy’s site and hadn’t given a try. I have now downloaded a copy thats has been fixed up and fine tuned per the request of other readers and users who tried out this utility. I installed it on my Server Core copy and I haven’t been disappointed, it lets you do a lot of common tasks such as adding the machine to the domain, running DCPROMO on it, changing NIC settings, changing display and time zone etc. which would otherwise require you know the command line or registry edit.

While this utility will comes in very handy (until Microsoft perhaps comes out of their own), remember its Microsoft’s attempt to offer a small footprint OS of Core features with the likes of Linux based DHCP, and DNS system such Infoblox, and they have tried to persuade the System Admins to learn the powerful capabilities of Cscripts, WMI and Netsh. This does take us the other way a little bit. But I sure am happy to see an option that allows to me do all those initial configuration tasks GUI-ily.

You be the judge and give it a try, download it from here,

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/files/folders/guyt/entry68860.aspx

P.S You can only launch the application from the folder where it was installed, i.e change the directory to the C:\Program Files\Server Core Configurator where it installs by default.

Filed under: Server Core, Windows Server 2008 |