Uninstall GUI from Windows Server 2012 R2

Some programs require the desktop environment to be present. Otherwise the installation procedure doesn’t work. I came across such a program and was forced to install it on a server with GUI installed. Later I realized that the program itself doesn’t require the GUI (at any time), so i decided to remove the GUI. Here’s how:I’ll show how to do it via PowerShell only. The only way to learn PowerShell it is to use it.

Cmdlet used to achive this is ‘Uninstall-WindowsFeature’ (or it’s alias ‘Remove-WindowsFeature’). In my case, I want to remove both GUI Shell and GUI Management Tools and Infrastructure. Run PowerShell in elevated mode and list the features in order to get the percise feature name:

PS C:\Users\tpl-adm> Get-WindowsFeature -Name *gui*
 
Display Name                                            Name                       Install State
------------                                            ----                       -------------
    [X] Graphical Management Tools and Infrastructure   Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra          Installed
    [X] Server Graphical Shell                          Server-Gui-Shell               Installed
 
 
PS C:\Users\tpl-adm>

Because I know that the uninstall requires a restart, ill use the ‘-restart’ parameter, and I’ll simply pipe the results of ‘Get-WindowsFeature’ to ‘Uninstall-WindowsFeature’

Get-WindowsFeature *gui* | Remove-WindowsFeature -Restart

If you plan on installing it again at the later time, you’re done. Else you can use the ‘-Remove’ parameter .

Get-WindowsFeature *gui* | Remove-WindowsFeature -Restart -Remove

This will delete the feature from the side-by-side store (“$env:windir\WINSXS”).

It is not recommended to install the desktop experience on a production server unless there is a real-life, honest compelling business reason for doing so.