In this particular configuration, most of Windows administrator will be lost. You can hopefully manage remotely the server using the well known MMC consoles but there are a lot of basic tasks that will require manual configuration.

If you try this savor you’ll find some included scripts to enable/disable Windows Update or Remote Desktop but that’s all.

There is however a tool named “Core Configurator” available in 2 version (2.0 for R2 and 1.1 for R1) that enable you to easily configure your Server Core.

The following can be done:

• Product Licensing
• Networking Features
• DCPromo Tool
• ISCSI Settings
• Server Roles and Features
• User and Group Permissions
• Share Creation and Deletion
• Dynamic Firewall settings
• Display | Screensaver Settings
• Add & Remove Drivers
• Proxy settings
• Windows Updates (Including WSUS)
• Multipath I/O
• Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails
• JoinDomain and Computer rename
• Add/remove programs
• Services
• WinRM
• Complete logging of all commands executed

There is another tool (in command line this time) named Core Configuration Console R2 (also exist for R1). It does most of the jobs (perhaps more than Core Configurator) and it’s worth having a look on it.

Keep in mind that you can also manage Server Core using:

• GPO (for Firewall settings, WSUS, Service configuration, screensaver etc.)
• Custom scripts (in PowerShell since Windows Server 2008 R2) so they can be reusable and be part of your documentation (it’s always easier to launch a script than going through multiple screens)