So before I get into core, let me first state that Win2k8 is the best server OS Microsoft has ever released. It is amazing how well polished everything is, and the tools that are there are great. Does it compare to Linux servers, well in some places it kicks ass and others it doesn’t, but since Linux servers are the de facto for command line based systems if we compare the command line features then they have done a HORRIBLE job.
All that is actually happening is you are getting the normal command prompt in a Windows and they dropped Explorer.exe from being the shell. In fact explorer.exe does not even get installed, but a lot of our old favourites are there, such as Ctrl+Alt+Del still brings up the usual menu and task manager still works.
Actually Microsoft dropped so much the gain in RAM is impressive (our avg RAM usage normally is 750Mb but on core it is a mere 300Mb) and the attack surface and patch requirements shrinkage is great.
Getting back to command.com as the shell, is likely the biggest single mistake of core.It’s not like Microsoft doesn’t have a great command line system, called Powershell which they could have used. In fact there is so little added to the command line that after this experience I went to a Win2k3 machine and was able to do most of this anyway, and it’s not hard to kill explorer.exe as the shell in Win2k3. One advantage doing this core mockup on 2k3 has, is that at least Internet Explorer is there for you to get online to get help, Win2k8 core has no decent help (just the same old crappy command.com stuff).
Linux has man pages, Powershell has get-help, the console has... Thank the heavens that I was able to use my laptop to get on to the Internet. For example I had problems with the first two core boxes trying to run Hyper-V on them, it just gave all kinds of RPC issues. Turned out that although I had not set the DNS correctly using netsh, I had set it for Primary Only and not Both. What the difference is beyond me because using the Windows GUI to set network settings for the last 20 years obviously sets this correctly so why make it so much tougher.
Another interesting feature of core, which I never had to it my head with but learnt about when I attended Win2k8 IIS training that Microsoft ran and the trainer said that in Core you couldn't run ASP.NET for web sites, because Core doesn't have the .Net framework. This is because the .Net framework installer needs a GUI. I suspect this is the same reason why Powershell can't be used, being .Net based and all. But the part I don’t understand is that THERE IS A FRIGGING GUI! It's all around the command prompt Window!
My recommendation is avoid Core as the extra work doesn’t make up for the cost of a little bit of extra ram, rather spend less time on setting up the server, more time billing customers and buy the ram. Hopefully in Windows Server vNext gets it right.