Converting Full-Server and Minimal-Interface Installations for Windows 2012
1.To convert a full-server installation to a minimal-interface installation, you remove the Server Graphical Shell. Although you can use the Remove Roles And Features Wizard to do this, you also can do this at a PowerShell prompt by entering the fol-lowing command:
uninstall-windowsfeature server-gui-shell -restart
This command instructs Windows Server to uninstall the Server Graphical Shell and restart the server to finalize the removal. If Desktop Experience also is installed, this feature will be removed as well.
2.To convert a minimal-interface installation to a full-server installation, you add the Server Graphical Shell. You can use the Add Roles And Features Wizard to do this, or you can enter the following command at a PowerShell prompt:
install-windowsfeature server-gui-shell -restart
This command instructs Windows Server to install the Server Graphical Shell and restart the server to finalize the installation. If you also want to install the Desktop Experience, you can use this command instead:
install-windowsfeature server-gui-shell, desktop-experience -restart
3.Converting Server Core Installations
To convert a full-server or minimal-interface installation to a Server Core installation,you remove the user interfaces for Graphical Management Tools And Infrastructure. If you remove the WoW64 Support framework, you also convert the server to a Server Core installation. Although you can use the Remove Roles And Features Wizard to remove the user interfaces, you also can do this at a PowerShell prompt by entering the following command:
uninstall-windowsfeature server-gui-mgmt-infra -restart
This command instructs Windows Server to uninstall the user interfaces for Graphical Management Tools And Infrastructure and restart the server to finalize the removal. Because many dependent roles, role services, and features might be uninstalled along with the user interfaces, run the command with the -Whatif parameter first to get details on what exactly will be uninstalled.
4.Server Core revert back to a Full-Server
If you installed the server with the user interfaces and converted it to a Server Core installation, you can revert back to a full-server installation with the following command:
install-windowsfeature server-gui-mgmt-infra -restart
As long as the binaries for this feature and any dependent features have not been removed, the command should succeed. If the binaries were removed, however, or Server Core was the original installation type, you need to specify a source for the required binaries.
You use the -Resource parameter to restore required binaries from a Windows Imaging (WIM) mount point. For example, if your enterprise has a mounted Windows Image for the edition of Windows Server 2012 you are working with available at the network path \\ImServer18\WinS12EE, you could specify the source as follows:
install-windowsfeature server-gui-mgmt-infra -source \\imserver18\wins12ee
While many large enterprises might have standard images that can be mounted using network paths, you also can mount the Windows Server 2012 distribution media and then use the Windows\WinSXS folder from the installation image as your source. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Insert the installation disc into the server disc drive, and then create a folder
to mount the Installation image by entering the following command:
mkdir c:\mountdir.
2. Locate the index number of the image you want to use by entering the following command at an elevated prompt:
dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:d:\sources\install.wim
where e: is the drive designator of the server disc drive.
3. Mount the installation image by entering the following command at an elevated prompt:
dism /mount-wim /wimfile:d:\sources\install.wim /index:2 /mountdir:c:\mountdir /readonly
where e: is the drive designator of the server disc drive, 2 is the index of the image to use, and c:\mountdir is the mount directory. Mounting the image might take several minutes.
4. Use Install-WindowsFeature at a PowerShell prompt with the source specified as c:\mountdir\windows\winsxs, as shown in this example:
install-windowsfeature server-gui-mgmt-infra -source c:\mountdir\windows\winsxs