Windows Server 2012 as a Workstation

This week I received my new HP EliteBook Workstation 8560w packed with Intel® Core™ i7-2860QM, 24 GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro 2000M, 750GB HDD and other goodies.

Big thanks to my friend over on Xeptor for giving me a good deal!

The first thing I did was to install the newly released RTM of Windows Server 2012. I wanted to use my laptop as LAB-server/workstation and run Windows 7 virtually with RemoteFX enabled.

Now, Windows Server 2012 is installed by default with no Desktop Experience. So I had to install that in order to get somewhat closer to a Workstation.

Turn on “desktop exper­i­ence”

• • Open power­shell and type these 2 lines
  • Import-Module Server­Man­ager
  • Install-WindowsFeature Desktop-Experience

After reboot I noticed that Metro UI was booted by default and I wanted it to boot directly to my Desktop.

Start on the desktop not in Metro

• • Open regedit
  • Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
  • Cre­ate a new key called “server” (or take own­er­ship and change per­mis­sions if it already exists)
  • Cre­ate a new 32bit DWORD called Cli­en­t­Ex­per­i­enceEn­abled and leave it set to 0. (or change it to 0 if it already exists)

I also didn’t want Server Manager to start automatically.

Don’t open server man­ager at logon

• • In server man­ager click “manage”
  • Select “server Man­ager Prop­er­ties” in the pull-down dialog
  • Tick “Do not start Server Man­ager auto­mat­ic­ally at logon”

Other visual tweaks

• • Make sure full visual effects are turned on
  • Open con­trol panel
  • Click on System
  • Click on Sys­tem again
  • Click on advanced sys­tem settings
  • Make sure you’re in the advanced tab
  • Click the top set­tings but­ton (in the per­form­ance section)
  • Select “adjust for best appearance”

The below setting did not seem to work. I will get back to that later

Enable startup sound

• • Open up registry editor. (Start > Run… > “Regedit”)
  • Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
  • Check to see if DisableStartupSound DWORD value is set to ‘1’. Change the value to 0 and then restart computer.

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