Adding and removing the GUI in Windows Server 2012

In Windows Server 2008 R2 you could select whether you wanted to run Standard (GUI) och Core version of Windows Server. In Windows Server 2012 the GUI is a feature which you can add or remove.

To remove the GUI you use the following Powershell one-liner:

Remove-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra

You can also uninstall the GUI, which removes the binary files from the disk. To completely uninstall the GUI you use the following Powershell one-liner:

Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra

If you realize you are in over your head you can add it back in using:

Add-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell

… or:

Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra,Server-Gui-Shell –Restart –Source c:\mountdir\windows\winsxs

You can also do all of this using Dism:
Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:ServerCore-FullServer /featurename:Server-Gui-Shell /featurename:Server-Gui-Mgmt

Links

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh831786

Comments

Leave a Reply

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)