Server Manager in Windows Server 2008
Many of us have grown really fond of the computer management MMC available in Windows Server since the days of Windows Server 2000, and some got used to the Manage your Server screen in 2003 (I for one did not use it, but some IT administrators I know used it quite a bit). In Windows Server 2008 Microsoft introduced a new tool that you could consider to be the illegitimate child pumped up in steroids of both Computer Management and Manage your server called Server Manager this new tool even allows you to install additional features and roles in your server which some of us used to do in the add/remove components wizard located in control panel.
Basically Server Manager will be your one stop tool to setup server roles and provide ongoing management post initial configuration of the server. Microsoft has good write-up on Server Manager that’s not too technical and everybody can understand and pick up quickly on to start using Server Manager right from the get go.
Before moving on I might add that Server Manager will open up each and every time you log on to your server and doesn’t offer a quick and easy way to disable this behavior like the Manager your Server tool did in 2003, to get rid of this behavior simply modify this registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Server Manager with a value of 1 to disable it and 0 to re-enable it.
Server Manager is based on MMC 3.0 which allows you to have a 3 pane Window that is basically dived into a Console tree, the actual content of each branch in the tree and the actions pane related to the currently selected item. This makes administration of components really fast except that now you have a lot of information on your screen and it can get a bit overwhelming sometimes, but there’s a way of removing or resizing some of the on screen information and this is done with my new 2 favorite buttons in Server Manager which allow you to hide either the console pane or the action pane.
In my opinion the thing that really just works out fine and perfectly within server manager is the role management area, since it allows you to add/remove roles, view information about roles such as current services status, manage the roles and even stop them all from one little tool.
In the screen shot above you can see all of the different options I mentioned above for the file server role, this would be pretty much the same for other roles such as IIS and Terminal Services.
My recommendation would be use it, play around with it and it will start to grow on you quickly and you will start thinking how you lived without it in the past (for real). If you would like to do some additional reading on the Server manager please refer to the following articles:
- Windows Networking - How Longhorn Server’s Server Manager will Change Server Management
- Network World - Chapter 20: Windows Server 2008 Management and Maintenance Practices
In my next post I will talk about a bit about the console version of server manager and how you could use this version of server manager to automate part of the setup and configuration of your desired server roles.