Cross Post from https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2017/01/03/remote-server-administration-tools-for-windows-10/
Hello everyone, my name is David Loder, long-time reader, first-time PFE blogger, based out of Detroit, Michigan. And I have a confession to make. I hate servers. Or more precisely I hate logging in to servers.
Hello everyone, my name is David Loder, long-time reader, first-time PFE blogger, based out of Detroit, Michigan. And I have a confession to make. I hate servers. Or more precisely I hate logging in to servers.
If you’ve been administering Windows Server for any length
of time, you’re hopefully aware of the Remote Server Administration Tools
(RSAT) package. RSAT provides the server
management tools for the Windows client Operating Systems like Windows 7 or
Windows 10 so that you don’t have to RDP into a Domain Controller just to run
the Active Directory Users and Computers GUI.
The RSAT package is OS specific. There is a different package for each client
OS that corresponds to the matching server OS.
There are links to each of the packages from the main RSAT Knowledge
Base article at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2693643.
If you are a typical enterprise customer you’ve most likely
been running Windows 7 as your client, and are just now starting to explore
Windows 10.
Because of the OS specifics, RSAT for Windows 10 is tied to
Windows Server 2016. The Tech Previews
all had a preview version of RSAT available for them. Since Windows Server released, only the RTM
version of RSAT for Windows 10 is available for download. On the download page, you’ll currently see it
as v1.2 with the WindowsTH-RSAT_WS2016-x64.msu name or WindowsTH-RSAT_WS2016-x86.msu
if you’re planning on running 32-bit Windows 10 for some reason. I’m personally surprised we’re still making
x86 versions of RSAT available.
The first caveat you’ll hit is that Windows Server 2016 RTM corresponds
to Windows 10 build 1607, also known as the Anniversary Update. If you are running one of the earlier
releases of Windows 10 (builds 1511 or 1507), many of the RSAT tools from the
current v1.2 download will not work. For
example, if you open Active Directory Users and Computers and look at the
properties of a user, most of the tabs will be missing, including the General
tab. Instead you’ll get a view that
looks like this.
Or if you open the newer Active Directory Administrative
Center, then try to open a user’s properties, the console will crash.
To avoid these problems, you must be on Windows 10 build
1607.
When you upgrade from an earlier build to 1607, RSAT will
not remain installed. You’ll have to
reinstall after upgrading. And you’ll be
treated to the expected results within ADAC and ADUC.
One nice thing about RSAT for Windows 10 is that you no
longer have to enable the tools after installing the package. All the tools are automatically enabled. Windows 7 required installing RSAT and then
remembering where to find the GUI to enable the tools. This behavior is back to how Windows 2000/3
worked. It was re-introduced with RSAT
for Windows 8, but I can count on one hand the number of admins I’ve seen
running that platform in the field.
Here is the full list of GUI tools that are added to the
Start Menu Windows Administrative Tools folder:
Active Directory
Administrative Center
Active Directory
Domains and Trusts
Active Directory
Module for Windows PowerShell
Active Directory
Users and Computers
Certification
Authority
Cluster-Aware
Updating
DFS Management
DHCP
DNS
Failover Cluster
Manager
File Server Resource
Manager
Group Policy Management
Microsoft Azure Services
Network Load
Balancing Manager
Online Responder
Management
Remote Access
Management
Remote Desktop Gateway
Manager
Remote Desktop
Licensing Diagnoser
Remote Desktop
Licensing Manager
Routing and Remote
Access
Server Manager
Shielding Data File
Wizard
Template Disk Wizard
Volume Activation Tools
Windows Server
Update Services
The full list of features that are enabled are:
Feature
Administration Tools
BitLocker
Password Recovery Viewer
DCB
LLDP-Agent Management Tools
Failover
Clustering Tools
Group
Policy Management Tools
IP
Address Management (IPMA) Client
Network
Controller Tools
Network
Load Balancing Tools
NIC
Teaming Tools
Shielded
VM Tools
Role
Administration Tools
Active
Directory Certificate Services Tools
Certification
Authority Tools
Online
Responder Tools
AD
DS and AD LDS Tools
Active
Directory Module for Windows PowerShell
AD
DS Tools
Active
Directory Administrative Center
AD
DS Snap-ins and Command-line Tools
DHCP
Server Tools
DNS
Server Tools
File
Services Tools
Distributed
File System Tools
FSRM Management
NFS
Administrative Tools
Storage
Replica Administrative Tools
Remote
Access Management Tools
DirectAccess
Server Management Tools
Remote
Access module for Windows PowerShell
Remote
Desktop Services Tools
Remote
Desktop Gateway Tools
Remote Desktop
Licensing Diagnoser Tools
Remote Desktop
Licensing Tools
Volume
Activation Tools
Windows
Server Update Services Tools
API
and PowerShell cmdlets
User
Interface Management Console
Server Manager
You may notice a few differences from previous iterations of
RSAT. Hyper-V is now built in to Windows
10, so the Hyper-V tools are their own features to be turned on or off and are
not part of RSAT anymore. The DCB LLDP-Agent
Management Tools includes the NetLldpAgent
PowerShell Cmdlets. The Shielded VM
Tools includes the Provisioning Data File Wizard and the Template Disk
Wizard. To find out more about how these
tools help create Shielded VMs you can read Dean Wells’ blog post on Creating
Shielded VMs Step by Step. Finally,
the Microsoft Azure Services tool is simply a link to get you started with understanding the
Operations Management Suite.
If you’ve gotten your RSAT fix for now, and are wondering
what’s next, you might want to spend some time reading up on Microsoft’s next
generation of server management tools.
We now provide an Azure-hosted management portal called Server
Management Tools. It uses a gateway
located on-premise to proxy between your on-premise servers and Azure so that
you can securely administer your servers from anywhere on any device. Look through their blog at https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/servermanagement
if you want to know more.
Thanks for spending a little bit of your time with me.
-Dave
#proudmicrosoftemployee
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