Welcome to the ITFreeTraining video on installing RSAT for Windows 8.1. RSAT, or Remote Server
Administration Tools, are the Windows Server administration tools available on your desktop
computer. Once installed, you will be able to perform most Windows Server administration
functions on your Windows 8.1 desktop. I will now change to my Windows 8.1 computer and
start the install.
First of all, I need to download the RSAT software. To do this, I will open internet
explorer and then use google to search for RSAT Windows 8.1.
The first result will take me to the download page. If you have trouble finding this link
I have included it in the description of this video. Once the download page has loaded,
I will press the download button and then tick the tick box for the 64bit download for
RSAT and then save the install file to the desktop.
Once the file has finished downloading, I will close internet explorer and then run
the RSAT setup from the desktop. The setup is essentially a Windows update, so the first
question it will ask you is do you want to install the update. The next screen will ask
you to accept the license agreement. Once I press “I accept” the install will start.
The install process took approximately five minutes to complete on this computer so I
will pause the video and return shortly.
Once the install is complete, the last screen of the install wizard will simply ask me to
close the wizard.
Now that the install is complete, I will run server manager. To do this, right click on
the start menu and select the option search from the menu. From the search I will enter
in “server” and then run server manager when it appears.
When you start server manager for the first time, no servers will be available to configure.
Notice that when I select the option “all servers” when the screen loads up, no servers
will be displayed.
To add some servers, right click “all servers” and select the option “add servers”. From
add servers, you can enter in the server name if you know it. However, I find a simpler
option is to press the button “find now” which by default will perform a search of
Active Directory.
Once the list appears, I will select the computers that I know are servers and then press the
right arrow key to add them to the selected area.
Once I press o.k, these servers will be added to server manager. You will notice that once
the servers have been added to server manager, server manager will attempt to contact each
server and obtain more information about that server.
You will notice that, in the list of servers, NYDC1 is listed as needing a restart. So server
manager gives you a quick indication of the health of the server, for example online,
offline or needing a restart.
Notice on the left hand side there are a number of different admin tools that have been added.
Server manager has detected what roles are installed on the servers and has added the
required tools.
You can see that if I select AD DS, this will show all the Domain Controllers. If I right
click on one of these Domain Controllers, notice that a menu appears with a list of
tools. This menu will only display tools that are relevant to the roles that are installed
on that server.
At the top are the common options that are available to all servers. You have options
such as “Add Roles and Features”, “restarting the server” and “computer management”.
I also like the fact that they have the option for Remote Desktop Connection. This allows
you to connect to the server via a remote desktop allowing you to perform any required
administration that you cannot do using the tools found here.
Since this server is a Domain Controller, Active Directory tools have been added below
this. Server Manager automatically detects which roles are installed and, in this case,
has detected the Active Directory role installed and has added the required tools. This makes
it easy to launch tools relevant for that server. For example, Active Directory Users
and Computers is shown. Even though I could run the tools this way, Active Directory User
and Computers is configured by default to connect to any writeable Domain Controller.
So it may not connect to this Domain Controller. Other tools may connect to the server you
have selected.
Notice all the tools below this. These are all command line tools. Once again, these
will appear based on what roles are installed on the server. For example, DCDiag has appeared
because this server has Domain Services installed.
Notice that when I run DCDiag, it runs on the local computer with no parameters. So,
essentially, the help for the command is shown. As I scroll up there is quite a lot of help
information available about the command.
If I now go back to server manager, essentially having all the commands line tools listed
here helps to remind the administrator what commands are available and it is up to the
administrator to work out the parameters that are required for each command. So if you forget
which command line tools are available or the name of the tool, use this feature in
server manager to help refresh your memory.
Below this, notice the option, “manage as”. This allows you to connect to the server as
a different user. If you require a different user name than the one that you are using,
this option allows you to connect to that server with a different username and password.
The next option down, “start performance counters”, will start the counters on the
server. These counters allow the administrator to obtain statistics on how the server is
running. For example, statistics on which software and roles are using the most CPU
and Ram. These performance counters are disabled in Windows Server 2008 and above. This is
to improve performance on the server as, even though most counters do not put much load
on the server, they do slightly impact performance on the server. This option simply enables
the counters that have been configured. For example, file counters are disabled by default
as they put a lot of load on the server. If you want additional counters to be used, you
will need to configure these counters on the server.
If I exit this menu and select the menu “tools”, notice that all the admin tools are available
here. If you know which tool you want to run, you can run it from here. For example, I can
run Active Directory Users and Computers from here rather than right clicking a server and
running it from there.
When using admin tools like these, sometimes options will be missing. If you want to see
these additional options, select the “view” menu and then select the option “advanced
features”. Notice that when advanced features are enabled, additional containers will appear
in Active Directory Users and Computers that were not present before.
If I now close Active Directory Users and Computers and Server Manager I will now right
click on the start menu, select run and then run the command MMC. MMC or Microsoft Management
Console allows the administrator to combine multiple admin tools into the one interface.
With all the additional features in Server Manager, few administrators will use MMC for
administration, but it is good to know - if you have particular tools that you use a lot
and want quick access.
If I select the menu “file” and then select “add/remove Snap-in”, this will allow
me to add additional admin tools to the interface known in MMC as Snap-ins. In this case, I
will add “Active Directory Users and Computers” and “DNS”. However, you can see from the
list there are a lot more to choose from.
Once these are added, I can expand Active Directory Users and Computers and see all
the objects in the domain.
If I select DNS, notice that I will be asked which DNS server I want to administer. In
this case, I will enter in NYDC1. Notice that once added, I can right click on DNS and add
a second DNS server. If you have particular tools that you always use or servers that
you user regularly, it is useful to be able to configure MMC with these tools and connect
to these servers.
Once you have MMC the way you want it, the next step is to select the file menu and then
select the option, “save as”. In this case I will save the MMC with the file name
AdminConsole.
If I now close MMC, notice that if I want to run MMC with the same configuration again,
it is just a simple matter of double clicking the shortcut on the desktop. You can see how
simple it is to configure MMC with your favorite admin tools and have it pre-configured to
the required servers.
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videos from us, please check-out our YouTube Channel or Web page. Thanks for watching and
see you next time.