When you first login to a Windows Server 2008 Core installation you may find the desktop screen resolution is too small at 640×480 pixels.
However the nature of the Core installation is that there is no graphical interface to modify the desktop resolution. Fortunately the changes can be made via the registry.
Launch Regedit.exe from the command prompt.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\<GUID>\0000 where <GUID> is your video adapter (note: if there is more than one just check each one to see which matches the video hardware installed).
The desktop resolution is configured using the DefaultSettings.YResolution and DefaultSettings.XResolution keys.
Modify the settings to the desired setting, in my case 1024×768.
Exit Registry Editor and issue a shutdown -r command to reboot the server.
When the server restarts it will boot with the screen resolution that you configured in the registry.
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