The one sentence you quoted was just a qualitative and subjective opinion, but one I still stand behind.
All the descriptions of Server Core that I can find are extremely vague about which components are and aren't in the product (something which also seems to change over time, with MS realising stuff was required and adding it back in, e.g. parts of .Net), but the things they make crystal clear are stated on MSDN: Server Core for Windows Server 2008 R2
[quote="Microsoft"][ul][li]There is no Windows shell and very limited GUI functionality (the Server Core interface is a command prompt).[/li]
[li]There is limited managed code support in Server Core.[/li]
[li]There is limited MSI support (unattended mode only).[/li][/ul][/quote]
The brief PDF you link also mentions IE, Outlook Express and Media Player, but if you're not leaving yourself logged into the server and/or not running any of those tools and services then I don't see what difference it really makes just having the code on the HDD but not running*. You can remove those tools (or at least their front-ends) from standard Windows installs anyway, and the parts of the underlying (non-front-end) components of IE and Media Player are required by parts of Opus, too (although you can probably get by without them, I'm not 100% sure).
(*Okay, there is a benefit that you know none of the code you are running has a hidden dependency on those components and loads them without you knowing -- instead it might break or have reduced functionality -- but you are now talking about running exactly the kind of GUI code which does have dependencies on those kinds of components, and adding back whichever components are required. Microsoft exclude their own file manager and its dependencies from this mix, yet we're talking about adding it back and another file manager on top. It seems to me that that largely defeats the purpose of running Server Core. You are adding back in exactly the things which were removed. It may be beneficial if you only have to add a tiny subset of those things, but from the descriptions of what Server Core has removed, and what we're talking about adding back, I don't see that being the case.)
Once you go adding back the Windows shell, and the components that it in turn depends on, where do you suppose the major differences will be between what you would have and a standard Windows Server install? What will be the substantive security benefits of that setup over a well-configured install of the normal Windows Server?
Maybe there is something I am missing but the benefits seem undefined but also quite limited in scope, while requiring a lot of effort to reach that point. Doesn't seem a worthwhile combination to me. That's just my opinion and not something that I can claim is a fact, because it's based on subjective value judgements, but equally I don't see how that opinion can be called false or disinformation without explaining the reasoning for saying so.
And it still is not clear to me how you would go about adding back the Windows shell and other components missing from Server Core, given that the only installer for those components is Windows itself.
I'm sure it is all technically possible, just as it would be technically possible to take a standard Windows Server install and start chopping components out of it, but I don't see what makes it worth the effort or anything that even gives a vague estimate of value of such a setup. (The information I can find about Server Core itself is vague enough as it is; info about Server Core + shell + whatever else might be needed seems non-existent.)
The best thing I can find from Microsoft is their list of APIs which work in Windows Core, but that is next to useless for judging any of this, to be honest. It needs to be organised by API category and components at the very least, and it needs to include information on COM objects and other OS components which are not accessed directly by APIs, as well as any limitations loaded on top of the standard APIs which are in the list.
