Microsoft Management Console Commands

Microsoft Management Console.

The first thing to understand is that a Microsoft Management Console is a host for an administrative tool called a snap-in. A snap-in is actually an Active-X module that is used to perform a specific function, but without a snap-in a console is useless. It's sole purpose is as an application to hold the snap-ins you select and provide a mechanism for them to become functional. Each console is created from either a single snap-in or combination of snap-ins. Once a basic console has been created it's up to you to add snap-ins appropriate to the intended use of the console. To illustrate, use the Run command in Start Menu to open the Event Viewer Console (eventvwr.msc) and the Computer Management Console (compmgmt.msc). The Event Viewer Console will contain only the event viewer snap-in. The Computer Management Console also contains the same event viewer snap-in under the category System Tools. A comparison of Event Viewer in both locations will show they contain identical data. The event viewer snap-in can be used by itself to construct a single purpose console, or as a component part of a multiple purpose console such as Computer Management. Whether one snap-in or multiple snap-ins are used, once they are added to the host and saved with a .msc extension it becomes a functional Microsoft Management Console.

The Event Viewer and Computer Management consoles are pre-configured consoles that come with Windows XP. In addition there are quite a few others that are standard issue with XP. The table below displays everyday name and the file name that is used to launch them using the [Start] [Run] command.


Certificates certmgr.msc
Indexing Service ciadv.msc
Computer Management compmgmt.msc
Device Manager devmgmt.msc
Disk Defragmenter dfrg.msc
Disk Management diskmgmt.msc
Event Viewer eventvwr.msc
Shared Folders fsmgmt.msc
Group Policy gpedit.msc
Local Users and Groups lusrmgr.msc
Removable Storage ntmsmgr.msc
Removable Storage Operator Requests ntmsoprq.msc
Performance perfmon.msc
Resultant Set of Policy rsop.msc
Local Security Settings secpol.msc
Services services.msc
Windows Management Infrastructure (WMI) wmimgmt.msc
Component Services comexp.msc