Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) has been released

Do you manage servers? I'm sure you do. We have released the Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista SP1 for both x86 and x64 platforms. So what is it exactly? Well it's the next version of the Windows Server 2033 Admin Pack which was used for Windows Server 2003 management. So what it essential means is you can manage roles and features in Windows Server 2008 from you computer running Windows Vista SP1. Note you need to have SP1 applied.

What's included RSAT?

Role Administration Tools

Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) Tools
Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools
DHCP Server Service Tools
DNS Server Service Tools
Shared Folder Tools
Network Policy and Access Service Tools
Terminal Services Tools
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Services Tools

Feature Administration Tools

BitLocker Drive Encryption Tools
Failover Clustering Tools
Group Policy Management Tools
Network Load Balancing Tools
SMTP Server Tools
Storage Manager for SAN's Tools
Windows System Resource Manager Tools

The question I first asked when I saw this was why would I use it over a Remote Desktop connection. Well to be honest sometimes you need to perform a very specific task on a server. RSAT allows you to use a specific tool you need to perform a particular task. Not sure how often I would use this but at least we give you the option.

So having said that I installed it on my main work laptop as I have a couple of servers at my desk that I use for various things. So after the install I went to Programs on my Start Menu and all I had was a help file for the RSAT tools. Well it turns out that the installation is a two-step process. Not the best UI experience in my opinion but there you go. So you have to go to Programs and Features in Control Panel and Turn Windows Features On or Off to add the tools. See the picture at the right. The good thing is you can choose which Feature or Role Admin tool you want and only install that tool. So if you only manage Active Directory or DHCP you can just install the tool you need.

Once this is done you get all the tools now in your Program Files. Now you can choose the tool you need to use without having to Remote Desktop into the server.

One of my servers I use as a simple file server for downloading builds and other bits from US servers so being able to use the Share and Storage Management Tool is quite handy.