The case of Internet Explorer missing

I’ve updated recently a test server from Windows 2012 datacenter core edition to Windows 2012 R2.
Although I chose the GUI version during the upgrade, it didn’t change anything.

After the upgrade I moved from my core edition to the GUI version by following my previous article on “Switching from Windows 2012 Core to GUI mode…hands on!”

I got my Start button back 🙂 but Internet explorer 11 still appeared to be missing although I restored all the GUI features 😦

(Get-WindowsFeature) | ? Name -match "internet"

Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 2012 R2 isn’t a feature or a role:

…It’s actually an optional feature:

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online | ? "FeatureName" -match "internet"

To restore Internet Explorer 11, I did

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online |             
 ? "FeatureName" -match "Internet-Explorer-Optional-amd64" |            
 Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -NoRestart:$true -Verbose -Online

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