Now that a build of Windows Server 2008 R2 has been released, I can start talking about what we have been working on. In a Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core installation we have:

· Active Directory Certificate Services is now an available Server Role.
· WoW64 support for 32bit applications is now an optional feature in Server Core and is not installed by default. This enables you to further reduce the footprint of Server Core if you remove it from the image. I’m interested in hearing feedback on our decision to not install this by default – is this a good idea, or will you always need to install this because you have 32bit code you need to run?

· Added the following as optional features:

* Subset of .NET Framework 2.0
* Subset of .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 – WCF, WF, and LINQ
* Windows PowerShell
* ASP.NET and additional IIS support – the only IIS feature not available in Server Core is the management GUI
* FSRM

The important thing to note about all of the above is that they are all optional so if you won’t be using them you don’t need to install, manage, and maintain them.