It’s possible and so easy to install “VMware PowerCLI” on the full edition of “Microsoft Windows (Client/Server)” (with GUI) but what about “Windows Server Core Edition”?
I’ve tried to install it on “Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Core” and here I’m listing some little points needed to take care of.
First of all, “VMware PowerCLI” needs “.NET Framework 2.0” which is not installed by default, so it should be installed before starting the whole process.
Adding or remove of new feature or rule is possible through command line or by using GUI on other server, here I’d install “.NET Framework” using PowerShell.
Step 1 – installing “.NET Framework”
Run “powershell” command so the normal command prompt would change to the “PS C:>”.
Check the current state of feature and rules by using bellow command
Get-WindowsFeature
For being more detail, filter the output and just look for any rule or feature contains “NET” in their names.
Get-WindowsFeature | where name -like net-*
The box behind “.NET Framework 3.5 Features” is empty but before starting the installation, lets simulate it and check if the process would be successful by using bellow command.
Install-WindowsFeature -Name "NET-Framework-Features" -Source [CD-Network-Source] -Restart -WhatIf
The “WhatIf” option would check the process and let us know the result, for installation, just remove the “WhatIf” and run the command again and after the installation, check the installed feature again.
Install-WindowsFeature -Name "NET-Framework-Features" -Source [CD-Network-Source] -Restart
Step 2 – Installing “vSphere PowerCLI”
The rest is simple and easy installation process as shown bellow.
Notes:
❓ It’s better to have the windows installation media somewhere close as it might be needed by some feature or rules.
❓ If the console (only interaction way) has been maximized, some prompt might go behind that, so making the window smaller might be better during this installation. (Image “P5-05-11”)
