In this article which is related to Windows Server 2012 R2 Core configuration, I’m going to show you how to convert Server Core to Full GUI and Convert from Gui to Windows Core? Before doing the conversion to full GUI and vice versa, you must know the basic configuration of Windows Server 2012 R2 Core.  The preview article was about essential Configuration of  Windows Server 2012 R2 Core?“.

This is the capability of Windows Server 2012 R2 that allows administrators to install servers with the full Gui, use the graphical tools to perform the initial setup and then convert them to Server Core to conserve system resources. In case of needed any changes, it is possible to reinstall the Gui components or remove them again. We can do it this conversion with Powershell and DISM command line utility.

Method 1: Convert Server Core to Gui using PowerShell

Get ready to convert Server Core to Full Gui using Windows PowerShell. In order to do this, log in to Server core with an administrator account and open the PowerShell through opened command prompt.

1. To open PowerShell type “start PowerShell” on command prompt and press Enter. The PowerShell will open in a new window. See the screenshot.

Now convert server core to full Gui using with the following “install-WindowsFeature” PowerShell command.

2. First of all gets the name of GUI features with “Get-WindowsFeature *GUI*” command.

You see the two Graphical Management Tools and Infrastructure and Server Graphical Shell which we need to install it.

3. Type the command “Install-WindowsFeature -Name Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra, Server-Gui-Shell –Source:E:\sources\install.wim” to install the GUI on Server core.

The “E:” is the DVD ROM of my computer and the Windows Server 2012 R2 is already in.

4. OK, when the installing features have finished successfully, restart the server core using “Shutdown -r -t 0” command.

After rebooting the system, you will see the Windows Server with full Gui and all necessary graphical management tools.

Finally, Windows Server with full Gui is here.

Method 2: Convert Windows Server Full Gui to Server Core

OK, let’s convert Server from full Gui back to Server Core using “Uninstall-WindowsFeature” PowerShell command. We can do it with graphical as well, but the command is easy and you must learn for the exam.

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

The command will uninstall and remove features and convert Server GUI to Server Core. After restarting the system, you will see your old Server core with only one opened a command prompt.

Method #2: Convert Server Core to Full Gui using DISM

Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe) is a command-line tool that can be used to service a Windows image or to prepare a Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) image. DISM can be used to service a Windows image (.wim) or a virtual hard disk (.vhd or .vhdx). But here we are using DISM to Install Windows Features or convert Server Core to full Gui with DISM.

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:ServerCore-FullServer /featurename:Server-Gui-Shell /featurename:Server-Gui-Mgmt /Source:E:\sources\install.wim 

After installing Windows features with DISM, type “Y” to restart the system.

Remove Windows Features with DISM

To remove the Gui features or Convert Server full Gui back to Server Core, do with the following command.

Dism /online /Disable-feature /featurename:ServerCore-FullServer /featurename:Server-Gui-Shell /featurename:Server-Gui-Mgmt

OK, that’s all you need to know to convert Server core to full Gui and vice versa. For the exam 70-410, you don’t need to know all of these, but you shout ready to involve with such questions about the conversion of Windows Server to full Gui and back to Core.

Hope this has been informative for you.

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Windows Deployment is the core task of network infrastructure when a system administrator want to install clients operating system too fast at a short period of time. To customize Windows image with Deployment Image Service and Management (DISM) tool will help you to create a thin image which contain all necessary software, Apps and drivers.

Understanding Windows Image Files

There are two images (Install.wim and Boot.wim) on the installation Windows DVD. You can find them within the Sources folder.

• Install Image: Is used to install the full Windows operating system. Install images can include operating system, applications, configuration changes and several install images.
• Boot Image: The primary purpose of boot.wim image is to load a minimal operating system and boot the system to Windows pre-execution environment (WinPE) so that the full operating system to be loaded, or to perform troubleshooting.

To see the complete information of an Image using DISM command see the following command.

dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:d:\sources\install.wim

The result shows that image is a Windows 8.1 Enterprise Evaluation with Index number of 1 and size is in bytes. Let’s see the information of a different image.

dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:i:\sources\install.wim

Yes it is a Windows Server 2012 R2 with 4 different edition. Now you must completely understand the Index number of Images.

To see the information of Boot image, execute the same command and type boot.wim instead of install.wim image.

dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:i:\sources\boot.wim

Do the similar task on Pre-execution environment (PE) with the following Imagex command line.

imagex /info d:\sources\install.wim

So you became familare with Windows images and know the differences between install and boot image and knowing how to get information of an image with DISM command line tool.

Customize Windows Image With DISM

A custom image mostly called thick image contains all software, applications and drivers unlike the thin Image that only includes operating system image. To customize Windows Image you must mount the install image offline services.

Mounting Images

To customize windows image, firstly copy the install.wim image from Windows installation DVD to a folder then mount it with the following DISM command.

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:e:\image\install.wim /index:1 /mountdir:e:
\MountedImage

It takes a few minutes to completely mount the image.

• The /wimfile: point the location of install.wim image.
• The /index: shows the index number within .wim image which previously explained.
• The /mountdir: point the path of mounted image, where the extracted image files are located.

Here is the mounted files of install.wim image. Now to see the mounted image information, just type “dism /get-mountedwiminfo” command.

OK, now time to modify the image using DISM.

Modifying Images

You can customize the below options and features of windows image.

• Add Windows drivers
• Add or remove packages and features
• Miscellaneous image modifications

Lets starting to add and remove some Windows features to this image. To add a package you must know the existing features and packages within your image.

To see the packages information type the following command. “dism /image:c:\mountedimages /get-packages”. It list all existing packages.

The best practice is to export all packages to a txt file.

dism /image:c:\mountedimages /get-packages /format:table >ImagePackages.txt

The list’s of exported packages in a text file. In order to see the exact package information type the following command.

dism /image:c:\mountedimages /get-packageinfo /packagename:Package_for_KB976902~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.514

You can check to see if any patches have been applied to applications within the system with the /get-apppatchinfo switch.

dism /image:c:\mountedimages /get-apppatchinfo

How to add a Package?

In order to add a package to your custom image, firstly download the package then add it.

dism /image:c:\mountedImages /add-package /packagepath:c:\downloadPackages\(package name)

To remove a package from your custom image do it with remove-package command.

dism /image:c:\mountedimages /remove-package /packagename:(Package name)

To enable and disable a features, do it with disable-feature or enable-feature, see more How to Install Windows Features Offline?.

To enable a features: “dism /image:c: \mountedImages /enable-feature /featurename: (Feature name)”.

To remove a feature: “dism /image:c: \mountedImages /disable-feature /featurename: (Feature name)”.

How to set a license key?

In order to set the product key, type “dism /image:c:\mountedImages
/set-productkey: (Enter the key)”.

How to Save the Custom Image?

Finally, after editing images try to save it with dism /commit-wim command.

dism /commit-wim /mountdir:c:\mountedimages

This command apply offline changes to image and save it. Then you should unmount the image using dism /unmount-wim command.

dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\mountedimages /commit

When you un-mount the image, the mounted files will no longer available to mounted folder and removed.

Now the custom image is ready to deploy with Windows Deployment Services or System Centre.

OK. These are the essential dism commands to customize windows image for windows deployment. I hope you to find this Customize Windows Image article helpful and if you need more information? just type dism /? to get the dism helps or ask your question through comment.

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Installing Windows Features are easy and simple. But it may take time to download and install it with low speed internet line. In this situation the best way is to install it with DISM Tools which help you to install with features from Windows DVD or Images. All necessary Windows features are stored in the windows image. You can install it which called offline windows feature installation.

The Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe) is a command-line tool that can be used to service a Windows® image or to prepare a Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) image. DISM can be used to service a Windows image (.wim) or a virtual hard disk (.vhd or .vhdx).

DISM replaces the ImageX tool which was deprecated in Windows 8. DISM also replaces Package Manager (Pkgmgr.exe), PEimg, and Intlcfg that were included in previous deployment toolkits. DISM also adds new functionality to improve the experience for offline servicing. For more information about the full functionality of Windows Deployment Image Services and Management read the article “What is DISM?” on Microsoft technet forum.

Install Windows Features Offline

It’s work for Windows 7 to Windows 10 and newer client version and Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2012 R2 and vNext Server. To install Windows features offline first of all mount the image of Windows or put the Windows desk to your system DVD Rom. Now open the the Windows PowerShell and run it as administrator.

Here I want to install .Net Framework 3.5 for my Windows 8.1 computer. I have mounted the Windows 8.1 Image to drive D:.

Type the following command: “Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Netfx3 /source:D:\Sources\sxs” and then press enter. It take a while and when the process has finished, close the PowerShell Windows then go to check the exact windows features must be installed successfully.

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