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Windows 7 RC & Admin Tools

This really isn’t new, but I needed a place to document it and this seemed like a good place in case I can’t get to Evernote ;-)

Using Windows 7 has been pretty stress-free for the day-to-day typical end user stuff, but for adminitration tasks there was a pretty big hole in 7’s functionality… until, now.  By now, I mean I finally had a need to look up the fix… now.  The problems discussed below were addressed a while back.

If you admin a Windows domain, you probably need the following (at a bare minimum):

• Active Directory Users and Computers (with the Exchange tab plugins)
• Exchange System Manager (you might still be using ‘03, ja?)
• IIS Management
• Network Service Management (DHCP, DNS, etc…)

These things didn’t really work on 7 with the tool installs that you may have been used to.  Read on after the jump for a look at how to get these working on the latest 7 RC…

First, get the software you’ll need:

• Windows 7 Remote Server Adminitration Tools (RAST, Beta)
• ORCA .msi Editor
• ESM for Vista

Install RAST, then get into the “Turn Windows Features on or off” section of the Programs item in the Control Panel. Run through the list and enable any snap-ins you’d like to use. Yes, it is that simple.

Next, you’ll want ESM to work (along with adding the Exchange tabs into the Users and Computers snap-in). But, if you’ve tried to install the ESM for Vista package on 7, you already know that it won’t. The fix, is to change the scripted install procedures in the .msi for ESM to make it not care that you’re installing it on something other than Vista.

Unpack the ESM for Vista package and edit the .msi with Orca.  Do the following (ripped from this forum post):

Deleted the following two actions in the InstallUISequence table:
* CA_SET_ERROR_MSG
* FatalErrorDialog

Also remove the text "(VersionNT = 600) And " from the condition statements
in the ControlEvent and InstallExecuteSequence Tables.

Save the .msi, then run it.  Once done, you should have everything you need for basic domain administration.  Obviously you can take these steps and apply them to other admin tools as they become available for Windows 7.

Good luck!