A. As Windows Server grows in functionality and subsequent number of components, organizations are able to get more and more out of their Windows investment. However, such OS growth has its downsides: More components means more items that need to patched and updated, and more components potentially means more vulnerabilities and a greater attack vector.
With Windows 2008, Microsoft has addressed these concerns by introducing a new Core installation type, which you select during the installation of the OS. The Core installation contains only 25 percent of the bits in Windows 2008; everything else is add-on functionality. Server Core installations have support for the following server roles:
- Active Directory Domain Services
- Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)
- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server
- DNS Server
- File Services
- Print Server
- Streaming Media Services
- Internet Information Services (IIS)
Supported features include:
- Microsoft Failover Cluster
- Network Load Balancing (NLB)
- Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications
- Windows Backup
- Multipath I/O
- Removable Storage Management
- Windows Bitlocker Drive Encryption
- Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
- Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS)
- Telnet client
- Quality of Service (QoS)
One missing component in Core is the Windows Explorer interface, so the shell is a command interface. The oclist.exe file is used to list the roles available and to add and remove (except for AD, which should be enabled via Dcpromo).
