Shortcuts to my favorite Snap-Ins for MMC

There are some really good GUIs for administrative tasks in Windows. I am talking about modules, so called snap-ins, for the mmc console (microsoft management console).

This snap-ins are usually kept in deep menu trees with more than 4 layers. I really don’t like moving the mouse a lot. Thankfully it is possible to launch these snap-ins by command line.

For that reason I use “Start > Run” or “Windows-Key (aka Super-Key) + R” to launch my favorite Snap-Ins.

You can run the snap-ins by typing the following commands:

• Services.msc This command launches the services control panel GUI.
• Certmgr.msc This is for managing the certificates on the local system.
• Compmgmt.msc Manage users, shares, drives, services and many more in one snap-in.
• Eventvwr.msc The Windows Event Viewer is a viewer for the local or remote eventlogs.
• Gpedit.msc With the Group Policy Editor you can edit settings on local or domain level.
• Secpol.msc The local security policy manager can be used to configure hundreds of security settings on the computer.
• Perfmon.msc You can draw graphs for monitoring hardware usage, system activity and application performance on local or remote systems in realtime with the Performance monitor.
• Adsiedit.msc This is a snap-in for managing the Active Directory on a low-level base. Adsiedit.msc is included when you install Windows Server 2003 Support Tools.

There are more snap-ins on your machine. You can search your windows system by hitting “Super-Key + F” and search for files matching *.msc.