Recover GUI in Windows Server 2012

Today, while trying to fix another issue on my SCCM server I created another.

I was trying to uninstall and reinstall .NET 3.5 and 4.5. After a successful removal I rebooted the server and after logging in I was confronted with a Server 2012 alternative shell command prompt. I rebooted and still server 2012 r2 only boots to command prompt.I could CTRL+ALT+DEL and open the task manager and open things like firefox but not able to reinstall it. Obviously, I learned the hard way the effects of removing .NET as a windows server feature.

The Fix

On the command prompt window, run the following and wait till it asks you to restart. See Image below.




Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Server-Gui-Mgmt /featurename:Server-Gui-Shell /featurename:ServerCore-FullServer /all

This solution worked perfectly for me.

Be sure to let me know in the comments below if this quick post has been helpful or not.