Depending on what you use Server Core for in your environment, the following changes may or may not affect you:
Active Directory Certificate Services has been added in R2.
WoW64 support for 32-bit applications is now an optional feature and not installed by default.
New
optional features include a subset of the .NET Framework 2.0, a subset
of the .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 (including Windows Communication
Framework [WCF], Windows Workflow Framework [WF], and LINQ, but not
including Windows Presentation Framework [WPF]).
Windows PowerShell (woohoo!!!) will be functional in the R2 version of Server Core.
ASP.NET
and additional IIS support have been added. And although you cannot use
the IIS GUI console in Server Core, you can use it remotely to manage
IIS in R2 if the web management service is enabled and configured.
FSRM
(File Server Resource Manager) will provide new functionality designed
to simplify storage management for all storage architectures.
Note
When the word subset
is used above for the .NET portions that have been added, the idea is
that the Server Core team didn’t seek to add to the footprint of the
system with items that aren’t necessary to Server Core. So, only those
aspects that would make sense are implemented.
To install .NET 2.0, you run the following:
Start /w ocsetup NetFx2-ServerCore
To install .NET 3.0 and 3.5 functionality, you run the following:
Start /w ocsetup NetFx3-ServerCore