Greetings to everyone on my "survival" under Windows Server without Explorer
Today I will test ordinary programs for unusual Windows.
I'll start from the beginning
When you turn on the computer, a standard Windows boot appears, but after booting, it is not the desktop that opens, but the command line and nothing more.
Download files over the Internet from the command line
Since I donβt know other ways to download files after a clean installation for a regular user (except for connecting a second hard drive with another system), I used the built-in utility bitsadmin.exe
First, create a folder in which we will upload files.
md c:downloadThen I uploaded the files that I need to my site.
For example, let's install an analogue of the standard explorer - Explorer ++
bitsadmin.exe /transfer "Download" https://ΠΌΠΎΠΉ_ΡΠ°ΠΉΡ/files/Explorer++.exe C:downloadExplorer++.exeDownload process:
Download completed:
Remembering the times of MS-DOS, we write Explorer++.exe to the command line.
The Explorer++ downloaded by me opens.
I also tried to launch the usual explorer, pulling it out of my system, but it refused to work, although I asked it very much. Through Powershell, you can install not only the standard explorer, but also MMC, Eventvwr, PerfMon, Resmon and Powershell ISE, but all this will consume resources and does not fit into the subject of the publication.
Software tests
First of all, let's stop using the command line for downloading files, and replace it with Internet Download Manager.
As a file manager, I use explorer ++, you can download any other one, it just came to my hand.
I installed the 7zip archiver, it also worked without problems.
Firefox browser was not installed for me, so I chose Chromium Portable. It will not be possible to download files through the browser, so we will continue to use the Internet Download Manager.
VLC media player started normally
qBittorrent didn't cause problems when starting either
Thunderbird throws the same error as Firefox
I will talk about office software a little later.
Games
Unfortunately, modern games through Steam will not work. The client crashes on startup.
Office software
Microsoft Office does not fit into the resource consumption framework. And Libre Office did not start, which is very sad.
The web version of Microsoft Office works through the browser, so you can easily edit documents, but you won't be able to save them to your local machine. I haven't tested Google Docs, but I think it will work too.
The final
Using Windows Server without Explorer as a "desktop" does not make any sense. If resources are really tight, it is better to choose one of the lightweight Linux distributions.
In this post, I showed an example of what it occurred to me to test, this is not a tutorial, but entertainment content. Thanks for reading.
Information sources:
Source: habr.com