OK folks, thanks for the clues. I abandoned Hyper-V "core" as being too much trouble. I did like the idea of a bare bones hypervisor (like we had in the mainframe days), but finding and learning the command prompt scripts is too much burden. I've installed Win2008 R2 Standard over the top of it.
This is the first time I've used Win2008 and I'm finding that the configuration tools and wizards have expanded greatly with a bewildering number of options. I've given it a fixed IP address and installed the Active Directory Domain Services, DHCP Server and Hyper-V roles. I connected to the Hyper-V manager locally and created a VHD for my file/web server and it's now installing okay, I think. I hope someone agrees that I've got the structure right, with the Win2008 DC OS as the "real" one, and the file/web server inside a VHD. The trouble is that I don't know for certain how to setup a DC correctly with DNS, gateways, DHCP, etc. The last time I tried it I did something subtly wrong and I got random DNS failures. A neighbour who is a networking specialist came down one evening and tweaked values and got it all working perfectly. He's moved to the other side of town, so I guess I'm on my own now. Whoo-hoo! Greg
