To set the timezone on a Server Core 2008 R2/2012, or any other version if you fancy CLI, use the following:

TZUTIL /G to list the current timezone
TZUTIL /L to list all available timezone settings
TZUTIL /S “Central Standard Time” to set your timezone to CST as example

Also useful is the w32tm tool to change settings around the Windows Time Service, such as setting up a manual NTP peer or forcing a time resync.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you just installed Windows Server 2012 in the recommended instance of Server Core, and upon boot, you get the nice little cmd.exe window but nothing else. Here’s how you get started using PowerShell cmdlets to configure it:

Rename: Rename-Computer computername

Reboot: Restart-Computer

Configure an IP: New-NetIPAddress -IPAddress x.x.x.x -InterfaceAlias “Ethernet” -DefaultGateway x.x.x.x -AddressFamily IPv4 -PrefixLength 24 (or whatever your subnet mask is)

Configure a DNS server: Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias “Ethernet” -ServerAddresses x.x.x.x

Join a domain: Add-Computer -DomainName domain.com

You can start using Server Manager after that to install roles and features, and configure them. If you can’t use Server Manager remotely, you might want to run Configure-SMRemoting.exe -enable and maybe disable/modify the Windows Firewall rules using MMC from another system