Remote Management in Windows Server 2008 Server Core

Using Windows PowerShell

You can use Windows PowerShell to administer Server Core remotely, but only if you use WMI in your PowerShell commands. PowerShell WMI commands typically take the following form:

Get-WMIObjectWMIclass -computername servername

where WMIclass is the WMI class you want to access and servername is the name of the remote Server Core installation.

Here is an example of using PowerShell (running on a computer running Windows Vista on which PowerShell 1.0 has been installed) to display a list of services installed on a Server Core installation named SEA-SC2 that belongs to the same domain. Perform the following steps:

1. On the Server Core installation, enable the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) rule group in Windows Firewall by typing the following command:

   netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)” new enable=yes

2. On the computer running Windows Vista, open the PowerShell command prompt by clicking Start, All Programs, Windows PowerShell 1.0, and finally Windows PowerShell.

3. Use the command shown here to display a list of services installed on SEA-SC2:

   PS C:\Users\tallen>  Get-WMIObject Win32_Service -computername SEA-SC2
   
   
   ExitCode  : 0
   Name      : AeLookupSvc
   ProcessId : 964
   StartMode : Auto
   State     : Running
   Status    : OK
   
   ExitCode  : 1077
   Name      : AppMgmt
   ProcessId : 0
   StartMode : Manual
   State     : Stopped
   Status    : OK
   .  .  .

For a quick introduction to using Windows PowerShell, see the Windows PowerShell Getting Started Guide on MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973757(VS.85).aspx.