Tag Archives: Windows

Remote server administration with Windows Vista

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If you’re a systems administrator and run Vista, you might have run into some trouble with the server 2003 administration tools package (adminpack). Well, there’s good news for you. Remote administration is now built into the Vista operating system.

  1. Firstly, you should be running service pack 1. I believe the tools are available for the original release of Vista, but I haven’t delved into it.
  2. You’ll need to download the updated RSAT pack from Microsoft:

    Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista…
  3. Go to the control panel and open “Programs and Features”.
  4. Click on “Turn Windows features on or off.
  5. Find and enable “Remote Server Administration Tools”.

Once you hit OK, your system will spend about 5-10 minutes configuring itself for remote administration and the “Administrative Tools” menu should be populated.

GnuWin32: A more helpful CLI for Windows

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I cut my system administration teeth on UNIX-based systems (OS X Server and Linux) and I quickly got used to being able to do a multitude of things very easily and efficiently from the command line. Windows, the main platform I support now, is missing a lot of these features. Every once in a while, after working on a Linux system, I’ll drop into a Windows command line and type something like tail -f foo.log just to get smacked with an error because the system has no idea what I’m asking of it.

Fortunately, the good people working on the GnuWin32 project have decided that Windows admins deserve a robust command line as well. GnuWin32 is a set of Windows-native executables that duplicate a large amount of the functionality found on a UNIX or Linux system. A lot of these little programs can make a Windows administrator’s life much easier. grep, tail, diff… all available without installing Cygwin.

The packages are distributed in a number of ways. Binaries are packaged in small collections. There’s are packages for the core utilities, diff utilities and separate packages for some of the other utilities like grep. There’s also a setup utility that functions as a package manager to help you keep all of the utilities up to date. Overall, this is a great project that’s definitely worth a look for anyone that hangs out in the CLI much.