This blog post was originally written by Michael Schroeder.
Comments are welcome! To suggest a blog topic or make other comments, contact WinServerBlogs@dell.com.
With the announcement of the Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate, we explored some of the changes on the server side and looked at how to launch some of the common administrative tasks within the new Windows Metro style user interface. We’ll provide a few tips to help you quickly navigate to the management task that you’re looking for.
First, a look at the current release. With Windows Server 2008 R2, it’s common to left-click the Start button to bring up the Start menu to select Administrative Tools, Control Panel or maybe use the search option to get to the management window of your choice to perform some particular task on your server.
With Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate, by hovering the mouse over the lower left corner of the screen a Start screen thumbnail will appear; you can right-click on the Start screen to bring up a context menu of administrative options. This new menu provides you with a toolbox of the most commonly used management functions to quickly get to your task at hand. For my testing, the addition of the Computer Management and Device Manager options have been very helpful in everyday work. Of course, you still have the old faithful Run dialog box which is the portal to any tool if you know the tool’s run command. This new menu gives you a direct launch point for the majority of the tools you’re looking for when managing your servers.
A side-by-side comparison of Windows Server 2008 R2 (left) and Windows Server 2012 RC (right) Start options.
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When using remote management cards like the iDRAC7 on 12th Generation Dell servers, there is a built-in macro (Ctrl-Esc) provided that can be used to quickly open the Start screen on Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate.
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After selecting the Ctrl-Esc macro from the iDRAC menu the Start screen opens:
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These tips can help save you time when you need to quickly get to a particular tool or application for everyday IT operations. In addition to the above, the new Server Manager has a large number of administrative options available for local or multi-machine management.
For additional helpful resources, check out the Windows Server blogs.
Because Windows Server 2012 RC is a pre-release product, features are subject to change. Dell does not provide any support for this pre-release software and it is not recommended for use in a production environment. Feel free to check out the new features of the RC release on your test servers and let us know what you think. Stay tuned for more blogs from the Dell OS Engineering team.
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