One more thing I forgot to mention: One of the biggest concerns I’ve heard recently is, “Will Windows PowerShell run on “Longhorn” Server Core?” The short answer is, “no.” But there’s a long answer, and some hope.
The reason is that PowerShell needs the .NET Framework; Server Core won’t include it or provide any means for installing it. That’s because Server Core is “stripped down,” designed to perform only a handful for core infrastructure tasks, like being a DNS server or a domain controller – and NOT a Web server.
What needs to happen is for the .NET Framework and its underlying dependencies to be componentized, so that just enough of the Framework can be added to a future version of Server Core, allowing Server Core to also include PowerShell as an optional component. Now, my understanding is that the .NET Framework team is already undertaking this componentization task for a variety of additional reasons, so that’s the first step. Once that’s done (sorry, I don’t think anyone has a timeframe for that – I think they’re still in the “figure it out” phase), some future version of Server Core (either in an “R2” style update or in an entirely new version of Windows Server) could include that “Minimal .NET Framework” as an installation option.
Personally, I’m guessing that they’ll also break out enough of the .NET Framework so that you could potentially run IIS on Server Core, too. That’d make sense, as a Web server is perfect for the Server Core scenario; it just needs enough of the .NET Framework to make ASP.NET work. Now, whether Microsoft would do that – and potentially jeoparidze sales of the Web Server Edition – I dunno. Maybe Web Server would “become” Server Core-ified if they did that. But that’s a really long-term thing, definitely for some future version of Windows at least a few years out – if MS decides to do it at all.
Direction-wise, I think you’ll see more and more companies running Server Core (or something like it) over the years: Highly componentized, fewer “moving parts,” and so forth, handling infrastructure roles, and roles where “light” servers (like a Web server) are more desireable than “big iron” machines (like a SQL Server installation would require). The version of Windows with actual Windows would become used for heavier-duty tasks.
Oh, some other Server Core trivia:
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Server Core is not an edition of Windows Server; it is an installation option. Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions of Windows Server will have a Server Core option. (I haven’t heard anything about Web Edition – are we even doing that with Longhorn?)
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Vista’s been using the tagline “The Wow Starts Now.” The Server Core team proudly introduces their product with “The Wow Stops Here,” a kind of nod to the fact that Server Core lacks any kind of real GUI and just logs on to a command-line window.
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Today, we know that Server Core can be any or all of the following: File/Print server, DNS server, AD domain controller, and DHCP server. No other software can really be installed on Server Core, as the OS itself lacks any advanced GUI capabilities and also lacks a lot of the dependencies that applications expect Windows to have.
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Think VBScript is dead? Guess again: One of the main tools used to configure Server Core is a WSF file written in VBScript.
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What about WMI? You’ll be able to remotely manage Server Core using WMI and VBScript, PowerShell, or other WMI-centric tools; Server Core does include the WMI service.
QUOTE:That’d make sense, as a Web server is perfect for the Server Core scenario; it just needs enough of the .NET Framework to make ASP.NET work.
to make asp.net you pretty much need the complete framework.