Introducing Active Directory Administrative Center

Active Directory Administrative Center provides network administrators with an enhanced Active Directory data management experience and a rich graphical user interface (GUI). Administrators can use Active Directory Administrative Center to perform common Active Directory object management tasks (such as user, computer, group, and organization units management) through both data-driven and task-oriented navigation. Administrators can use the enhanced Active Directory Administrative Center GUI to customize Active Directory Administrative Center to suite their particular directory service administering requirements.

 There are several special considerations:

1. Active Directory Administrative Center can be installed only on computers running the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. Active Directory Administrative Center cannot be installed on computers running Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008.

2. Active Directory Administrative Center cannot be installed on the Windows 7 operating system. However, this functionality will be available in future releases of Windows 7.

3. In this release of Windows Server 2008 R2, you cannot use Active Directory Administrative Center to manage Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) instances and configuration sets.

One of the collest features of Active Directory Administrative Center is that it gives administrators the ability to manage Active Directory objects across multiple domains within the same instance ofActive Directory Administrative Center . When you open the Active Directory Administrative Center, the domain that you are currently logged on to (the local domain) appears in the Active Directory Administrative Center navigation pane. Depending on the rights of your current set of logon credentials, you can view or manage the Active Directory objects in this local domain. You can also use the same instance of the Active Directory Administrative Center and the same set of logon credentials to view or manage Active Directory objects from any other domain (that belongs or does not belong to the same forest as the local domain) as long as it has an established trust with the local domain (Both one-way trusts and two-way trusts are supported.)

You can also open the Active Directory Administrative Center using a set of logon credentials that is different from your current set of logon credentials. This can be useful if you are logged on to the computer that is running the Active Directory Administrative Center with normal user credentials, but you want to use Active Directory Administrative Center on this computer to manage your local domain as an administrator. This can also be useful if you want to use Active Directory Administrative Center to remotely manage a domain that is different from your local domain with a set of credentials that is different from your current set of logon credentials. However, this domain must have an established trust with the local domain.

For more information on Active Directory Administrative Center features, including details on the Overview page, the customizable navigation pane, the breadcrumb bar, the query building search and filtering mechanisms, etc. see What's New in AD DS: Active Directory Administrative Center (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=131022).

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.