Windows – Manage Windows Server Core 2012 from Server Manager on a Windows 7 machine

I've had success with Sysinternals Process Explorer. With this, you can search to find what process(es) have a file open, and you can use it to close the handle(s) if you want. Of course, it is safer to close the whole process. Exercise caution and judgement.

To find a specific file, use the menu option Find->Find Handle or DLL... Type in part of the path to the file. The list of processes will appear below.

If you prefer command line, Sysinternals suite includes command line tool Handle, that lists open handles.

Examples

• c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "e:\" (finds all files opened from drive e:\"
• c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "file-or-path-in-question"

Run SCONFIG. Just type sconfig at the command prompt. Then choose option 6 or 7 (the exact option escapes me at the moment) for Windows Updates. You can change your Windows Update settings to install updates automatically, or you can download and install them manually, just like with the GUI.

sconfig comes with Server Core out of the box. In fact I think it runs at startup the first time you log on to the machine. Not sure how you missed it... maybe it doesn't run at startup on Hyper-V Server 2012.