Which Windows Server 2019 Installation Option should I choose?
Windows Server 2019 will bring several installation options and tuning options for virtual machines, physical servers as well as container images. In this blog post I want to give an overview about the different installation options of Windows Server 2019.
Installation Options for Windows Server 2019 Physical Servers and Virtual Machines
As always, you can install Windows Server 2019 in virtual machines or directly on physical hardware, depending on your needs and requirements. For example you can use Windows Server 2019 as physical hosts for your Hyper-V virtualization server, Container hosts, Hyper-Converged Infrastructure using Hyper-V and Storage Spaces Direct, or as an application server. In virtual machines you can obviously use Windows Server 2019 as an application platform, infrastructure roles or container host. And of course you could also use it as Hyper-V host inside a virtual machine, leveraging the Nested Virtualization feature.
| Installation Option | Scenario |
|---|---|
| Windows Server Core | Server Core is the best installation option for production use and with Windows Admin Center remote management is highly improved. |
| Windows Server Core with Server Core App Compatibility FOD | Workloads, and some troubleshooting scenarios, if Server Core doesn’t meet all your compatibility requirements. You can add an optional package to get past these issues. Try the Server Core App Compatibility Feature on Demand (FOD). |
| Windows Server with Desktop Experience | Windows Server with Desktop Experience is still an option and still meets like previous releases. However, it is significantly larger than Server Core. This includes larger disk usage, more time to copy and deploy and larger attack surface. However, if Windows Server Core with App Compatibility does not support the App, Scenario or Administrators still need the UI, this is the option to install. |
