Blade Watch

http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2007/07/27/a-core-install-of-windows-server-2008-has-no-explorer-or-mmc-but-it-s-not-character-mode-either.aspx

A Core install of Windows Server 2008 has no Explorer or MMC, but it’s not character mode either

Everyone that is experimenting with Windows Server 2008 is excited about the Server Core installation, which is a minimal install of the Server that can run specific roles (like DNS, Active Directory or File Server) with a much smaller footprint and attack surface. A Core install is indeed much smaller than a Full install both in memory and on disk. In fact, if you install both versions using Virtual PC, the difference in size between the two resulting VHD files is quite dramatic. Using the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Beta 3 my VHD size was about 5.9 GB for a Full and only 1.6 GB for the Core install. Using the Windows Server 2008 June CTP release (also known as IDS3) the VHD size for the Full was around 4.5 GB and the Core was under 1.4 GB.

However, I see that some people expect to find a character-mode only interface and that’s just not the case. It is true that you get a command prompt after you log on and there’s no explorer.exe or iexplore.exe on the hard drive. However, it is still a graphical environment and you do get a logon screen that looks exactly the same as the Full install of Windows Server 2008. In fact, that command prompt appears to you in a window, and you can open multiple command windows at the same time by using “start /w cmd”.

Check out this post, it’s talking about the next version of Windows including the Core version which looks very cool.

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