I just recently started on my journey to learn about and build a server based on Windows Server 2008 Core. I've installed the bits and I'm just now starting to get into the configuration. The first thing that I had to do was change the hostname:
netdom renamecomputer <OldName> /NewName:<NewName>
This gave me a much easier way to refer to the computer (the auto-generated name was WIN-<LongString>, the new name is griddle). The second thing I did was to enable remote administration by setting the firewall rules to allow the remote administration:
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Administration" new enable=yes
In my reading, I found that you can enable or disable the ability to remotely administer each set of servies individually (e.g. File Sharing, or Hyper-V), but since I'm just playing around, I opened them all up. The next part of the equation was to enable the Remote Desktop. I really haven't looked too far into this, but one of the things that I really like about the Linux distributions that I've worked with was that once I've set them up, I turn on ssh and then I can just connect directly to the command line in a secure and user friendly manner (well, friendly to me). I haven't found out how to do this in Server 2008 Core yet, so I'll stick to using a command prompt window in a GUI for now. To do this, we have to change the registry and then open the firewall:
cd C:\Windows\system32
cscript scregedit.wsf /ar 0
netsh firewall set service type=remotedesktop mode=enable
The main reason why I like to use ssh or Remote Desktop is because I spend a lot of time doing things that I'll only do once or twice to any particular machine. To make it easier, I like to plan out what commands I'm planning on running and then putting them in a text file. Then, I can just copy and paste, line by line, when I'm sure I have everything I need. That it a lot easier than trying to remember a sequence of commands and switches and options. The second (and to me, more important) reason why I do it this way is that I LOVE to multitask. It is quite rare that I ever have fewer than 3 remote server connections going at any time, along with a couple of instances of Internet Explorer, Excel and Word. Not to mention Outlook, Notepad++, Office Communicator, Pidgin, Powershell, and assorted others.
Well, that is the current setup of my Windows Server 2008 Core. The next steps will be to install Active Directory services, Hyper-V, and everything else I need for a little lab environment.
Note: I would prefer to have the AD server be running on a host, but I've been advised that it's not wise to have the host joined to a Domain Controller that is running as a guest. It's fine for the DC to be virtualized, but you want to make sure that you have a DIFFERENT DC running somewhere as well.