Windows Administration Moves Beyond GUI

With Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft is reducing Windows Server’s reliance on GUI-based administration and is giving more prominence to command-line and script-based administration. Administrators will benefit from this change in direction because they need to monitor and configure the hardware and software resources of multiple desktops, laptops, and servers, and GUI-based administration tools are not as efficient as scripts for some repetitive administration tasks. Administrators will now have powerful non-GUI administration and management alternatives for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, but leveraging the new alternatives may require training in the new script languages, and better administration-focused editing and debugging tools.

Windows offers several modes of administration: GUI (not discussed in this article), command-line, and two types of scripting—basic-batch and Windows Script Host. (For background, see the sidebar “Windows Administration Modes“.) In Windows 2003 Server, administration via command-line, basic-batch scripting, and Windows Script Host-based scripting are more viable because Microsoft has improved and added a number of management technologies, including Windows Management Instrumentation; provided new tools, such as the Windows Management Instrumentation Command Line; and has made more tasks scriptable, such as the importing of accounts from Windows NT 4.0 domains via the Active Directory Migration Tool.