Selected Scenarios for Managing Desktops with Windows Vista

Windows Vista includes new and updated features that make it easier for you to manage client computers in your organization.

This section describes selected new and updated features that you can use to manage client computers.

Information technology (IT) professionals and administrators use Event Viewer to view computer system health and status. In Windows Server "Longhorn" and Windows Vista™, this tool has been rewritten from the ground up. It has a new interface and is integrated with a new centralized event logging system. Event Viewer works with native Windows Server "Longhorn" and Windows Vista event log files (.elf). It also provides backward compatibility with Event Viewer files from Microsoft Windows NT®, Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems.

Event Viewer can run queries that search across multiple logs. Cross-log queries can also be used with stored custom views, which you can define to display events that match specific criteria from selected log files.

The integration of Event Viewer with Task Scheduler enables it to trigger predetermined actions when a specified event occurs. This can be a simple action, such as starting another service when an event occurs, or a more complicated one, in which a set of actions is triggered when a service fails.

Event Viewer can display either very large results sets from single log files or complicated cross-log views. By adding multi-page support to the views, Event Viewer makes these large results sets manageable and scalable.

You can use Task Scheduler to automate administrative and system tasks. You can also integrate Task Scheduler with Event Viewer to automatically perform an action, such as starting a service or sending e-mail, when a specified event occurs.

Task Scheduler is able to integrate with Event Viewer to provide more flexibility in responding to system or application events. For example, you could create a task that sends an e-mail whenever disk space runs low on a server, alerting the administrator that maintenance is required.

You can create tasks so they run under different user credentials, depending on the resource requirement. To improve the security of scheduled tasks, each task runs in a separate user session that is based on the user credentials being used.

Task Scheduler includes a new summary view that you can use to quickly determine which tasks are running, which are scheduled, and what the current status is for each task. You can sort this summary view to easily identify tasks that have completed successfully, as well as those that have failed or are yet to run.

The Print Management Console (PMC) is a Microsoft Management Console snap-in that was introduced in Windows Server 2003 R2 and is also included in Windows Server "Longhorn". You can use PMC to perform a variety of print management tasks.

The console tree in PMC offers a tree view of the servers being managed, as well as nodes for All Printers, Printers With Jobs, Printers Not Ready, and Printers Not Ready AND With Jobs. These nodes give you quick access to printers that need attention without requiring you to sort through long lists of installed printers.

Those using Windows XP Professional in network environments often expect to add printers by querying Active Directory for the closest printer or the one with specific features that meet their needs. With PMC, you can publish printers in Active Directory, or you can remove them from Active Directory if they are no longer being used.

With PMC, you can create a Group Policy object (GPO) containing information about specific printers and then assign that GPO to users or computers. This enables you to provide printer assignments to users and computers instead of requiring the users to add printers.

Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) centralizes administrative tasks associated with Group Policy into a single snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

GPMC can access Group Policy information for multiple Active Directory forests, based on your access permissions and the network structure. The initial view presented by the GPMC displays nodes for the forest that your user object resides in. It also displays the domains and sites within that forest. To manage Group Policy for additional forests, you can just add the forest by name, and GPMC will display both the original forest and the added forest.

Group Policy Modeling provides a simulation of the GPOs as they will be applied to a user or computer. This enables you to model the resultant policies as they will affect the target without actually applying the GPOs to the user or computer. The Group Policy Modeling tool uses the Resultant Set of Policy-Planning Mode capabilities of Windows Server "Longhorn" to predict the outcome of all GPOs that are being applied to an object.

The Group Policy Results node within GPMC accesses the Resultant Set of Policy-Logging Mode capabilities to give you information about the results of the actual application of GPOs to a target user or computer. Group Policy Modeling predicts the results of a set of GPOs on a target, but the Group Policy Results node displays the actual outcome of multiple GPOs on a computer or user.

The new desktop management features centralize more of the information that you use to monitor and administer client computers. Custom views can gather events of specific types across multiple logs and computers. You can use the multi-page capability to monitor larger sets of information in your custom views.

Task Scheduler can respond to events on the client computers you manage by triggering responsive actions when specified events occur. The triggered response can be simple, such as sending an e-mail to your administrator when a service stops. A triggered response might also be as complex as restarting the service, sending e-mails, and then recording log information to a separate log file.

Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) in Windows Server "Longhorn" is provided by default, and does not require an additional download and installation. GPMC gathers common administrative tasks for Group Policy into a single snap-in. It also provides import/export and backup/restore capabilities for GPOs.

This section discusses the following key scenarios that pertain to managing desktops:

A custom view in Event Viewer can give you all the necessary details you need to manage your client computers without the distraction of other events. Custom views can include specific types of events for one or more computers.

To complete this task, you must have the following:

Unless specified otherwise, to complete this task, you must be a member of the Local Administrators or Power Users groups. If the computer is in a domain, you can be a member of the Domain Administrators group.

When you use custom views in Event Viewer, you might not be able to select multiple computers as sources for custom views.

To complete this task, you must have the following:

Unless specified otherwise, to complete this task, you must be a member of the local Administrators group.

There are currently no known issues associated with completing this scenario.