Windows Server 2012 - First impressions

I thought I could play a little bit with Windows Server 2012. Said that, I logged into my Windows Azure management portal and created an extra small VM with Windows Server 2012 on it.

A few minutes later my VM was provisioned and ready. The virtual hard disk is sized to 30 GB and fits in the free storage that is part of my MSDN subscription. The VM already had a remote desktop endpoint configured and I added a new endpoint for port 80. I then logged into the VM.

At login, the server automatically started the server management application on the desktop. The new console in the ‘Modern UI’ style (heck, I propably stick with Metro forever), so, the Metro UI console is very clean and lean. With a few clicks the web server role was added and installed.

Even with only about 765 MB of ram the server runs smoothly and fast. The new task manager gives a lot of additional information compared to the old one, and the server manager dashboard hints directly to potential problems.

At a first glance, the system seems very capable and I think it’s worth spending some more time with that VM.