Welcome to the ITFreeTraining video on installing Remote Server Administration Tools or RSAT
on Windows 7. In the work place, it is useful to have RSAT installed on the network administrators
desktop computer in order to perform administration on servers on your network and in later videos
I will use RSAT to configure servers on the network.
Remote Server Administration Tools are all the Server administration tools that are available
on the server on the non server operating system like Windows 7. In other words, you
can administer a server from your workstation using the same tools that are available when
you are sitting in front of the server using the keyboard and mouse. RSAT is available
for different operating systems like Windows Vista and Windows 8.
If you are using RSAT on Windows 7 and you have a server running Windows Server 2012,
most features you will not be able to access and some you will be able to. The most noticeable
missing feature is being able to access server manager on a Server running Windows Server
2012. If you want to fully administer Windows Server
2012 from remote you will need to upgrade to Windows 8. Given Microsoft’s track record
of adding features to RSAT, it is unlikely that they will release a version of RSAT for
Windows 7 that will be able be manage all the features in Windows Server 2012. If you
want to manage all Windows Server 2012 features from remote, you will need to upgrade your
workstation to Windows 8 and install the Windows 8 version of RSAT.
To look at how to install RSAT for Windows 7, I will have to change to my workstation
running Windows 7. First of all, to install Remote Server Administration
tools for Windows 7, it must first be downloaded from Microsoft. To find the link for the download
I will open Internet Explorer and search for RSAT Windows 7. This should find the latest
version of RSAT for Windows 7, in this case RSAT with Service Pack 1. If you are not able
to find the link, I have included the link for the download in the description for this
video. Once the download page has loaded, it is just
a matter of pressing download and selecting the download compatible with this system,
in this case the 64bit version. In this case, I will download the install files and save
them to the desktop. Once the download has completed, I will close
internet explorer and then run the install file from the desktop.
The install is quite a simple one, when asked, press yes, install the update and then accept
the license agreement. The install does take a long time to complete. On this computer
it took 8 minutes to complete the install so I will pause the video and return once
the install is complete. Once the install is complete, a help file
will appear telling you how to finish the install. At present, even though that install
is complete, the shortcuts for the admin tools have not been created.
In order to do this, I will close these Windows and then open the control panel from the start
menu. To make these tools available, I need to select programs and then select Turn Windows
Features on or off. From the list, I next need to select Remote
Server Administration Tools. Notice that when I do select this the tick box goes blue rather
than have a tick in it. This is because none of the items below this are ticked. Unfortunately,
if you want all the tools available you will need to manually go through and tick every
single item. Notice also you have to be particular in making sure all sub folders of sub folders
are also ticked. If you only want certain tools you can choose to only tick these. The
more items that you tick, the longer it takes to configure Windows to use these tools.
Once I press o.k. the tools will be configured on this computer. On this computer it took
3 minutes to configure the admin tools so I will pause the video and return once it
is complete.
Now that the install has finished, I will next open Server Manager from administrative
Tools under the start menu. Once the prompt appears asking which server to connect to,
I will enter in SRV2 which is a server on my network running Windows Server 2008 R2.
Server Manager will give a message indicating that a connection could not be made. If I
expand the details notice the error message is stating that access has been denied. By
default, access is not allowed via remote tools to Windows Server 2008 unless it is
enabled. To do this, I will change to SRV2 and enable remote management.
To enable remote management, I will open server manager and from server manager select the
option on the right “Configure Server Manager Remote Management”.
In the next Window, it is just a matter of ticking the tick box “Enable remote management
of this server from other computers.” Once ticked, and I press the o.k. button, remote
management for this server will be configured and enable remote administration. Once enabled
I will change back to my Windows 7 computer. Now that remote management has been enabled,
if I now press retry, notice that server manager will now be able to connect to SRV2. Once
connected I will be able to access any roles, features and other options configuration on
the server just like I was accessing these options using the keyboard and mouse in front
of the server. If I right click Server Manager and select
“Connect to Another Computer” I will be able to connect to a different server. In
this case I will enter in NYDC1 which is running Windows Server 2012. In Windows Server 2012,
remote administration is enabled by default and thus there is no need to enable it like
there is in Windows Server 2008, however notice that I will not be able to connect to the
server. When I look at the error message, all though
quite long, the main point is this part which states “WS-Management Service cannot process
the request.” This is basically stating there are features on the Server that this
version of server manager cannot process. To put it in simple terms, RSAT for Windows
7 cannot be used to connect to server manager on servers running Windows Server 2012.
Even though server manager will not work with Windows Server 2012, you can however use the
other tools provided which should work in most cases. If I open Active Directory Users
and computers from Administrative tools under the start menu, you will notice that I will
be able to perform administration actions on the domain even though the Domain Controllers
in this domain are running Windows Server 2012. You can see that I can navigate through
Active Directory and open properties for users without any problems.
In most cases the Administrative tools will work fine with Windows Server 2012. If however
you want all features including server manager you will need to use Windows 8.
Thanks for watching this video from ITFreeTraining on RSAT for Windows 7. I hope that you have
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