Server Manager is the much talked about new, all-in-one, handy-dandy MMC snap-in to manage Windows Server 2008 systems. It provides most of the same functionality of the Computer Manager snap-in that we are all used to in previous versions of Windows. There are some notable changes and difference however:
- Server Manager does not allow connections to remote systems. Some functionality of Server Manager, specifically Roles and Features, can only work on the local system so allowing it to connect to a remote system doesn’t make sense.
- Server Manager can be launched by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Manage. This isn’t a difference between these two snap-ins, but is changed functionality in Server 08: previous versions of Windows launched Computer Manager using this shortcut. A shortcut to the Computer Manager snap-in is still available via the Administrative Tools Start Menu folder(which is also reachable via the Administrative Tools item in Control Panel).
- Server Manager is automatically launched upon administrative user login by a scheduled task. A new choice for scheduled tasks in Vista and Server 08 is to run them at login and this is how the server manager launch is handled.
The main impact for me so far is a combination of numbers one and two above. I commonly right-click on My Computer, select Manage, and then connect to another system to view logs, services, etc. instead of remoting into that system. Now I just have to remember to go to the Admin tools to do this same task.
This really comes into play for Hyper-V systems installed on Windows Core. Because Windows Core has no GUI admin interface of its own, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to perform some tasks on the Core console; e.g., disk management, event log review, and device manager. Thus, the best way to accomplish these taks on a Hyper-V core system is to connect using the Computer Management snap-in.
Nothing earth-shattering here, just a few observations and differences that are not immediately obvious and caused me a small amount of web searching.
