Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 Configuration Options

Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 include the Server Core configuration option that is available on Windows Server 2008, and two additional options called Server Graphical Shell, and Minimal Server Interface.

Server Graphical Shell is equivalent to the full server installation on Windows Server 2008. Minimal Server Interface is a component that you can add to Server Core in order to manage a server with a user interface that does not have the overhead of Server Graphical Shell configuration. The topics in the section provide details about Server Core and Minimal Server Interface on Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

In this section

Topic	Description
Server Core for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012	Server Core for Windows Server 2012 R2 is a minimal server installation.
Minimal Server Interface for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012	Minimal Server Interface for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 is a server configuration with a minimal graphical interface.