Remote server administration tools for windows 10 2004

Table of Contents Show

• Install RSAT in Windows 10
• Install and Remove RSAT Using PowerShell
• Remote Server Administration Tools for Roles
• Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Features
• How to Install Remote Server Administration Tools for Vista
• RSAT Terminal Services Manager in Vista
• How do I Install remote admin tools in Windows 10?
• How do I enable remote administration in Windows 10?
• How do I access RSAT tools in Windows 10?

Microsoft’s management consoles have been around since Windows 2000 and are the basis of most GUI configuration tools in Windows Server. If you are a Windows Server administrator, you will already be familiar with tools like Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) and Server Manager. The Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) package these familiar tools for Windows client operating systems. The tools have long been built-in to Windows Server and there is no need to download them. But until Windows 10 version 1809, you needed to download the right RSAT package for your version of Windows and then install the tools using the Control Panel.

If you are wondering why I’m discussing RSAT now when Microsoft is pushing Windows Admin Center (WAC) as the future of graphical user interface administration in Windows Server, that is because there are still many tools not available as part of WAC. Most notably, for administering Active Directory. But in general, WAC is the way forward if you want to use GUI tools for Windows Server management. You can find more information on using WAC on Petri: Windows Admin Center — The Future of the Windows Server GUI and Getting Started with the Windows Admin Center.

Install RSAT in Windows 10

RSAT is a Feature-On-Demand in Windows 10 version 1809 and later. But unlike in Windows Server and versions of Windows that require RSAT to be downloaded manually, RSAT is installed using the Settings app rather than the Control Panel.

• Log in to Windows 10 with an administrator account.
• Open the Settings app by pressing WIN+I.
• Click Apps in the Settings app.
• On the Apps & features screen, click Manage optional features.
• On the Manage optional features screen, click + Add a feature.
• On the Add a feature screen, scroll down the list of available features until you find RSAT. The tools are installed individually, so select the one you want to add and then click Install.

After a few minutes, the RSAT tool you selected will be installed on your device.

How to Install the Remote Server Administration Tools in Windows 10 (Image Credit: Russell Smith)

Install and Remove RSAT Using PowerShell

You can also install and remove RSAT in Windows using PowerShell. Start by opening a PowerShell prompt with local administrator privileges. To see which RSAT tools you have installed, use the Get-WindowsCapability cmdlet:

Get-WindowsCapability -Name RSAT* -Online | Select-Object -Property Name, State

To install all the available tools, pipe the results of Get-WindowsCapability to Add-WindowsCapability:

Get-WindowsCapability -Name RSAT* -Online | Add-WindowsCapability –Online

To install individual tools, use the name of the tool you want to add. You can get the name from the Get-WindowsCapability cmdlet and add it to Add-WindowsCapability as shown here. In this example, I’m installing the Certificate Services tools.

Add-WindowsCapability -Name Rsat.CertificateServices.Tools~~~~0.0.1.0 –Online

To remove a tool, use Remove-WindowsCapability instead of Add-WindowsCapability:

Remove-WindowsCapability -Name Rsat.CertificateServices.Tools~~~~0.0.1.0 –Online

How to Install the Remote Server Administration Tools in Windows 10 (Image Credit: Russell Smith)

Note that Feature-On-Demand requires Microsoft Update. If Windows Update is configured to use an internal Windows Update server or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) Software Update Point (SUP), then you won’t be able to install RSAT without taking extra steps. Either you need to temporarily configure the device to use Microsoft Update or go to Windows Update and select Search for updates online.

Remote Server Administration Tools was released by Microsoft for Windows Vista SP1 users to be able to manage both Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 Servers.

If you had upgraded to Vista in the past and wanted to manage Windows servers with your Vista client, you were able to with some hacks. But all in all it was a very painful process and a lot of administrators had to run a Windows XP machine virtually or have a second box to do server administrative tasks.

Now that the RSAT is released for general consumption what can it do?

Remote Server Administration Tools for Roles

Active Directory Certificate Services Tools - includes the Certification Authority snap-in, the Certificate Templates snap-in, the Enterprise PKI snap-in, and the Online Responder Management snap-in.

• Active Directory Certification Authority Tools includes the Certification Authority, Certificate Templates, and Enterprise PKI snap-ins.
• Online Responder Tools includes the Online Responder Management snap-in.

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools - includes snap-ins and command-line tools for remotely managing Active Directory Domain Services.

• Active Directory Domain Controller Tools includes Active Directory Users and Computers, Active Directory Domains and Trusts, Active Directory Sites and Services, and other snap-ins and command-line tools for remotely managing AD DS.
• Server for Network Information Service (NIS) Tools includes an extension to the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, and the ypclear.exe command-line tool.

Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools - includes Active Directory Sites and Services, Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) Edit, Schema Manager, and other snap-ins and command-line tools for managing AD LDS.

DHCP Server Tools - includes the DHCP snap-in.

DNS Server Tools - includes the DNS Manager snap-in and dnscmd.exe command-line tool.

File Services Tools - includes the following, along with the storagemgmt.msc snap-in:

• Distributed File System Tools includes the DFS Management snap-in, and the dfsradmin.exe, dfscmd.exe, dfsdiag.exe, and dfsutil.exe command-line tools.
• File Server Resource Manager Tools includes the File Server Resource Manager snap-in, and the filescrn.exe and storrept.exe command-line tools.
• Share and Storage Management Tools includes the Share and Storage Management snap-in.

Terminal Services Tools - includes the Remote Desktops and Terminal Services Manager snap-ins.

Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) Services Tools - includes the UDDI Services snap-in.

Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Features

BitLocker Drive Encryption Tools - includes the manage-bde.wsf script.

Failover Clustering Tools - includes the Failover Cluster Manager snap-in and the cluster.exe command-line tool.

Group Policy Management Tools - includes Group Policy Management Console, Group Policy Management Editor, and Group Policy Starter GPO Editor.

Network Load Balancing Tools - includes the Network Load Balancing Manager snap-in, the nlb.exe and wlbs.exe command-line tools, and wlbsctrl.dll.

SMTP Server Tools - includes the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) snap-in.

Storage Manager for SANs Tools - Tools includes the Storage Manager for SANs snap-in, and the provisionstorage.exe command-line tool.

Windows System Resource Manager Tools - includes the Windows System Resource Manager snap-in and the wsrmc.exe command-line tool.

How to Install Remote Server Administration Tools for Vista

There are two versions of the RSAT tool, one for 32-bit machines and one for 64-bit machines. You can download the version you need at their respective download locations:

• Download: Remote Server Administration Tools (x86)
• Download: Remote Server Administration Tools (x64)

Once you download the file go ahead and give it a left click … c'mon … you know you want to! After clicking the file you will see it preparing the installation and doing a search to make sure your copy of Vista is prepared for the remote server admin tools.

After a bit you will get a prompt to install Update for Windows (KB941314)

After clicking Ok, you will now get prompted to read the license terms, in this case it is a simple paragraph that I actually read, that said if you are using an illegal copy you can't use this software.

Since I am lucky enough to be using a legal copy I let off a sigh of relief and plunged ahead by clicking I Accept

Now it will begin Initializing installation and applying updates

After it is done installing you will see the Installation Complete screen:

Now when you go to Start->Administrative Tools you will see the following help file: Remote Server Administration Tool

When you click on it you will be able to read all about using Remote Server Administration Tool goodness. But instead of wasting your time reading that, I went through some of it above and will show some examples below here so you don't have to!

The one thing you don't see is any of the additional tools for administrating your Windows Servers, but that's because you still have to enable them.

Now let's go in and enable Remote Server Administration Tools in the control panel so you can use them: Start->Control Panel

Next you will see the control panel, go ahead and click on Programs

Click on Program & Features

On the left pane click on Turn Windows features on or off

Note: If you are prompted by UAC go ahead and click Ok

In the Windows Features window you can scroll down until you see Remote Server Administration Tool.

At this point you can install all the features, by checking the box, or you can expand out both the Feature Administration Tools & Role Administration Tools and only install the tools you wish to use. For our example I am going install them all!

Once you hit OK, you will see a window that shows it is configuring Vista with the features selected.

Now that it is enabled lets go back in to the Administrative Tools to see if anything is different?

Seems like everything was loaded correctly! Let's take this baby for a test drive …

RSAT Terminal Services Manager in Vista

This section of the article will walk you through starting Terminal Services Manager and connecting to a remote Windows 2008 Server.

Go to your Administrative tools and go Terminal Services->Terminal Services Manager

You will see the following MMC open.

Note: You may be prompted by UAC, go ahead and click Ok

When you run Terminal Services Manager the first time (and every time if you don't disable it) you get prompted by a warning that certain features are disabled when run from the console session.

If you wish to disable this, go ahead and check In the future, do not show this message and click Ok

As you can see this MMC is in the new Server 2008 layout. Let's go ahead and click Connect to Computer in the right Actions pane

In the next window you can either connect to the local computer, or another computer. In this case I am going to enter an IP address to the test Windows Server 2008 I am running and click Ok

It connects successfully as you can see and I can tell that I already have a session on the test server through RDP.

There is a lot more to see in the MMC but I just wanted to demonstrate the functionality of administrating from Vista, and will have to cover actual usage in a future article.

As you can see RSAT brings a much overdue set of tools for System Administrators that will cut down on having to keep separate machines running just to do simple administrator tasks.

How do I Install remote admin tools in Windows 10?

How do I enable remote administration in Windows 10?

How do I access RSAT tools in Windows 10?