Windows 7 : Configuring the MMC - Adding a Snap-In

11/30/2010 7:46:46 PM

Launching the MMC

To get the MMC onscreen, you have two choices:

To start with a blank console, select Start, type mmc, and then press Enter.
To start with an existing snap-in, select Start, type the name of the .msc file you want to load , and then press Enter.

Figure 1 shows a blank MMC window. I show you how to add snap-ins to the console in the next section.

Figure 1. The Microsoft Management Console ready for customizing.

You start building your console file by adding one or more snap-ins to the console root, which is the top-level MMC container. (Even if you loaded the MMC by launching an existing snap-in, you can still add more snap-ins to the console.) Here are the steps to follow:

1.	Select File, Add/Remove Snap-In (or press Ctrl+M). The MMC displays the Add or Remove Snap-ins dialog box, shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. You use the Add or Remove Snap-ins dialog box to populate the MMC with snap-in nodes.
2.	In the Available Snap-ins list, select the snap-in you want to use.
3.	Click Add. Tip You can help organize your snap-ins by adding subfolders to the console root. In the list of snap-ins, select Folder and then click Add. When you return to the MMC, right-click the new subfolder and then click Rename to give the subfolder a useful name. To add a snap-in inside this subfolder, select File, Add/Remove Snap-In (or press Ctrl+M) to open the Add/Remove Snap-In dialog box. Click Advanced, activate the Allow Changing the Parent Snap-in check box, and then click OK. In the new Parent Snap-In list that appears, choose the subfolder you added. See Figure 10.4 , later in this chapter, for some example subfolders.
4.	If the snap-in can work with remote computers, you see a dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 3. To have the snap-in manage a remote machine, select Another Computer, type the computer name in the text box, and then click Finish. Figure 3. Some snap-ins can manage remote computers as well as the local machine. To use a snap-in with a remote computer, that machine must have remote administration enabled.
5.	Repeat steps 2–4 to add other snap-ins to the console.
6.	Click OK.

Figure 4 shows the MMC with a custom console consisting of several snap-ins and subfolders.

Figure 4. The MMC with a custom console.

Note

In Figure 4 , the items in the Web Pages subfolder are based on the Link to Web Address snap-in, which is a special snap-in that displays the current version of whatever web page you specify. When you add the snap-in, the MMC runs the Link to Web Address Wizard. Type the web page address (either an Internet URL or a path to a local or network page), click Next, type a name for the snap-in, and then click Finish.