In this video from IT Free Training I look at how to install and use Remote Management
tools in Windows 7. After this I will show you how to use Microsoft Management Console
to administrate your servers both locally and from remote. Using both of these makes
it a lot easier for an administrator to perform maintenance on a network.
When supporting Windows Servers, you are not likely to be using a server product as your
workstation, most likely it will be a Windows client like Windows 7. Client operating systems
such as Windows 7 do not come with the administration tools that are found in Windows Server so
these will have to be downloaded and installed.
The tools that are provided in the Remote Server Administration Tools otherwise known
as RSAT. RSAT is available as a free download from the Microsoft Web site. In order to use
these tools you need to be running Windows Vista or above. RSAT is very operating system
specific so you will need to download the correct version for your operating system.
For example, you could not install the Windows 7 download on a Window Vista computer. You
will also need to ensure that you have the required service pack installed depending
on which version of RSAT that was downloaded.
If you are running Windows XP, you can use the Administration Tools Pack. This was the
predecessor to RSAT so does not have all the same features. It is also known as the AdminPak.
Although the AdminPak does not have all the same features, if you need to use Windows
XP to perform administration, it is better than nothing.
Once you have the tools installed, Microsoft provides a way to group these tools together
in the one interface. This was introduced in Windows Server 2000 when Microsoft created
the Microsoft Management Console or MMC. MMC provides a standardised framework for administration
tools. The MMC allows multiple tools to be grouped together or they can be run stand
alone. Each time you run an admin tool like Active Directory Users and Computers you are
in fact running the MMC with that tool only. Since multiple tools can be added to the one
MMC interface, these are often referred to as snap in’s.
The advantage of the MMC is that once you have customized it to your specifications
you can then save it for later. I will now change to my Windows 7 computer to look at
how to install the Remote Server Administration Tools and how to use MMC.
In order to have the additional administration tools available in Windows 7, I will first
download the Remote Server Administration Tools. There are a number of different downloads
depending on which operating system you are running. I find the easiest way to find the
download is to open internet explorer and simply search for RSAT or Remote Server Administration
Tools.
Once you have found the appropriate website, ensure that you are downloading the correct
version for that operating system and also check that you have download the appropriate
32-bit or 64bit version for your operating system. In this case I have already downloaded
the installer, so I will now close Internet Explorer and run the installer from the desktop.
This install only requires that you accept the license agreement when asked. The install
process on this computer takes about 10 minutes to complete, so I will pause the video and
return when the install is complete.
With installation complete, a help document will now appear explaining what to do next.
In order to start using the administrative tools, I will now decide which tools will
be available for this operating system.
To do this, I will now open the control panel and select the option Programs. Once the programs
opens, I will select the option Programs and Features. The Administration Tools are installed
as features, to enable them, select the option on the left ‘Turn Windows features on or
off.’
The feature that needs to be enabled is remote Server Administration Tools. Notice however
when selected there is no tick in the box, instead there is a square. If I expand Remote
Server Administration Tools notice that none of the options are ticked. In order to start
using the administration tools, you need to individually select which ones you want.
For Server Administration, you will want to ensure Server Manager is selected. Under Role
Administration Tools you next need to select which roles on your servers you want to administrator
from this workstation. You could go and select them all, but once again you will need to
expand the options to ensure the options you want are selected.
Some options appear under Feature Administration Tools. One important option to select is ‘Group
Policy Management Tools’. This will install the group policy management tools that a lot
of administrators use when administering an Active Directory domain. In later videos I
will be looking a lot at group policy.
Once I press OK, the tools that I just selected will be installed. The process takes a few
minutes. Installation time will be dependent on how many tools were selected. I will now
pause the video and return once installation is complete.
Once the install is complete, notice that under administrative tools Active Directory
User and Computers and a number of other tools are available that were not available before.
Since these tools have been installed, they are now available to the MMC in the form of
a snap-ins. To use them, first of all I will open MMC from the start menu. To add a snap-in,
select file and then select add remove snap-in.
In this case I will add Active Directory Users and Computers and a second snap-in for remote
desktop. Notice that when the snap-in has been added, the Active Directory Users and
Computers snap-in works the same as if Active Directory Users and Computers had been run
by itself. I can now navigate down through the OU’s and perform administration the
same as if I had connected to a Domain Controller and run Active Directory Users and Computers
from there.
If I now right click on Remote Desktop and select the option, ‘Add new connection,’
I can enter in the computer that I want to create a remote desktop connection to. In
this case, I will enter in the server name NYDC1. I can now use the same procedure to
add NYDC2.
To establish a remote connection to NYDC1, all I need to do now is double click on the
connection. With remote connection some administration functions will be disabled by default. To
enable it, in server manager select the option, ‘Configure Server Manager Remote Management.’
Once selected, all that needs to be enabled is ‘Enable remote management of this server
from other computers.’
Now that this setting is enabled, I will now be able to add the snap-in Server Manager
from the file menu. When the snap-in is added, I will be prompted for the server name which
will be NYDC1. If I had attempted to enter in NYDC1, without the server being configured
for remote management, this step would have failed.
Once the snap-in is added, I can now expand through server manager the same way server
manager would operate if I were in front of the server. You can start to see how MMC can
be used to group together your most commonly used admin tools in the one place. You can
potentially add all servers in your company into the same MMC and switch between them
very easily.
Once the MMC console has been setup, you can now save it from the file menu. In this case
I will save it to the desktop, so if I want to use it again I simply need to double click
on the icon the desktop to open it.
I am now free to keep making changes to the MMC console, however in some cases you may
not want prevent changes from being made. For example, you may configure an MMC for
helpdesk support to use in which once setup you do not want them making changes.
If I select file and then select options, notice that the console mode is set to author
mode. This will allow changes to be made. The next option down, “User mode – Full
access”, prevents changes to the MMC console. The user is still free to use any snap-in
that was added by the creator of the MMC but cannot add or remove snap-ins or change the
properties of the snap-ins.
The next option, “User mode – Limited access, Multiple Window”, allows the user
to open multiple Windows in the same MMC console. For example, you could create a new Window
that only has the one snap-in it. To switch Windows, you can use the menu pull down and
select which Windows want.
The last option, ‘User mode – limited access, single windows,’ prevents the user
from creating new windows. Since no new Windows can be created, the Windows menu is hidden.
This concludes our video on how use MMC on Windows 7 and using ‘Remote Server Administration
Tools.’ Using these effectively will allow to perform administration of your comptuers
network from your workstation.
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website. Thanks for watching.