Table of Contents

Converting a server with a GUI to or from Server Core

You can switch between a Server Core installation and full installation in Windows Server 2012 because the different between these installation options is contained in two specific Windows features that can be added or removed. The firs feature, Graphical Management Tools and Infrastructure (Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra), provides a minimal server interface and server management tools such as Server Manager and the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). The second feature, Server Graphical Shell (Server-Gui-Shell), is dependent on the first feature and provides the rest of the GUI experience, including Windows Explorer.

To convert a full installation to a Server Core installation, just remove these two features in Server Manager. Note that removing the first feature will automatically remove the second.

How-To

Get-WindowsFeature