A. One of MMC's great features is its flexible and we will take a quick look at this by creating out own custom console.
The first step is to start the MMC shell, select Start - Run and type MMC.EXE. MMC will be started with no snap-ins loaded and has no functionality.
The next step is to add a snap-in:
- From the main MMC menu, select Console - Add/Remove Snap-in
- The Add/Remove dialog will be shown and no snap-ins will be listed. Click Add
- A list of all known snap-ins will be displayed. Select a snap-in (for
example Disk Management) and click Add
- Depending on the snap-in added other options may be displayed for example on the Disk Management you can choose the local computer or a remote computer. Click Finish
- You may add other snap-ins (for example DNS). When finished adding click Close
- The dialog will show the snap-ins added. Click OK
The main console will now show the snap-ins added at the root. Its possible for each snap-in to be in its own window within the MMC rather than as a single tree by right clicking on the snap-in and selecting 'New Windows from Here' from the context menu. If you did this for all snap-ins loaded you could close the main tree window.
Once your console is laid out to your liking you can save it as follows:
- Select 'Save As' from the Console menu.
- Select a location to save the configuration as and enter a name. It will have a .msc extension.
- Click Save
If you save to your profile area, e.g. d:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools the new MMC configuration will be displayed on the Start Menu.
