Once you have joined your Windows Server 2008 R2 machine to the domain you are ready to install roles and features. Normally you would do this through server manager but in core there is no GUI so there is no server manager.
Roles and Features Available to Install
To get a list of roles and features available to install you can run the command:
dism.exe /online /get-features
dism.exe is the Deployment Image Servicing and Management Tool. This command is available on all editions of Win7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
/online tells dism to work on the currently active installation of Windows. You can also point it to a stored image even if it is not currently running.
/get-features tells dism to get a list of available features and their current status. The output of this command on my system (truncated to just a few lines) is:
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.1.7600.16385Image Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Features listing for package : Microsoft-Windows-ServerCore-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385
Feature Name : NetworkLoadBalancingHeadlessServer
State : EnabledFeature Name : SUACore
State : Disabled
After the basic header information it shows us a feature and it’s current state. The first two features are “NetworkLoadBalancingHeadlessServer” which is installed and SUACore which is not installed.
The list of roles and features available are at the bottom of this post along with any relevant notes next to them.
Installing a Role or Feature
To install a role or feature we use the command
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:
To install the .Net Framework 2.0 we would use the command:
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx2-ServerCore
Available Roles and Features in Windows Server 2008 R2 Core
| NetworkLoadBalancingHeadlessServer | Allows the server to be a member of a Windows Load Balancing cluster |
| SUACore | Subsystem for UNIX |
| SUACore-WOW64 | Subsystem for UNIX |
| WindowsServerBackup | |
| WindowsServerBackupCommandlet | |
| MultipathIo | |
| DNS-Server-Core-Role | |
| FRS-Infrastructure | |
| BitLocker | |
| BitLocker-RemoteAdminTool | Ability to remotely administrate BitLocker on the server |
| DirectoryServices-DomainController-ServerFoundation | Active Directory |
| DirectoryServices-ADAM-ServerCore | Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (better known as ADAM) |
| ActiveDirectory-PowerShell | Active Directory Powershell Cmdlets |
| IIS-WebServerRole | |
| IIS-WebServer | |
| IIS-CommonHttpFeatures | |
| IIS-StaticContent | |
| IIS-DefaultDocument | |
| IIS-DirectoryBrowsing | |
| IIS-HttpErrors | |
| IIS-HttpRedirect | |
| IIS-WebDAV | |
| IIS-ApplicationDevelopment | |
| IIS-NetFxExtensibility | |
| IIS-ASPNET | |
| IIS-ASP | |
| IIS-CGI | |
| IIS-ISAPIExtensions | |
| IIS-ISAPIFilter | |
| IIS-ServerSideIncludes | |
| IIS-HealthAndDiagnostics | |
| IIS-HttpLogging | |
| IIS-LoggingLibraries | |
| IIS-RequestMonitor | |
| IIS-HttpTracing | |
| IIS-CustomLogging | |
| IIS-ODBCLogging | |
| IIS-Security | |
| IIS-BasicAuthentication | |
| IIS-WindowsAuthentication | |
| IIS-DigestAuthentication | |
| IIS-ClientCertificateMappingAuthentication | |
| IIS-IISCertificateMappingAuthentication | |
| IIS-URLAuthorization | |
| IIS-RequestFiltering | |
| IIS-IPSecurity | |
| IIS-Performance | |
| IIS-HttpCompressionStatic | |
| IIS-HttpCompressionDynamic | |
| IIS-WebServerManagementTools | |
| IIS-ManagementScriptingTools | |
| IIS-ManagementService | |
| IIS-IIS6ManagementCompatibility | |
| IIS-Metabase | |
| IIS-WMICompatibility | |
| IIS-LegacyScripts | |
| IIS-FTPServer | |
| IIS-FTPSvc | |
| IIS-FTPExtensibility | |
| WAS-WindowsActivationService | |
| WAS-ProcessModel | |
| WAS-NetFxEnvironment | |
| WAS-ConfigurationAPI | |
| IIS-HostableWebCore | |
| ClientForNFS-Base | |
| ServerForNFS-Base | |
| DFSR-Infrastructure-ServerEdition | |
| DHCPServerCore | |
| SNMP-SC | |
| DFSN-Server | |
| TelnetClient | |
| WINS-SC | |
| Printing-ServerCore-Role | |
| Printing-LPDPrintService | |
| Printing-ServerCore-Role-WOW64 | |
| ServerCore-EA-IME | |
| ServerCore-EA-IME-WOW64 | |
| QWAVE | QoS Support for audio and video |
| NetFx2-ServerCore | .Net 2.0 Framework |
| NetFx2-ServerCore-WOW64 | .Net 2.0 Framework for x86 |
| NetFx3-ServerCore | .Net 3.5 Framework |
| WCF-HTTP-Activation | |
| WCF-NonHTTP-Activation | |
| NetFx3-ServerCore-WOW64 | .Net 3.5 Framework for x86 |
| MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell | |
| MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell-WOW64 | |
| ServerManager-PSH-Cmdlets | Powershell Cmdlets for Server Manager |
| BestPractices-PSH-Cmdlets | Powershell Cmdelts for Best Practices Analyzer |
| PeerDist | Branch Cache |
| Microsoft-Hyper-V | |
| VmHostAgent | VDI Agent |
| CertificateServices | Active Directory Certificate Services |
| SMBHashGeneration | Branch Cache |
| ServerMigration | |
| ServerCore-WOW64 | |
| FSRM-Infrastructure-Core | |
| CoreFileServer | |
| LightweightServer | |
| Microsoft-Windows-Web-Services-for-Management-IIS-Extension | |
| FailoverCluster-Core | Windows Failover Clustering |
| FailoverCluster-Core-WOW64 |
