Configuring services

Most Windows Server roles and many of the features include services, which are programs that run continuously in the background, typically waiting for a client process to send a request to them. Server Manager provides access to services running on servers all over the network.
When you first look at the Local Server home page in Server Manager, one of the tiles you find there is the Services tile, shown in Figure 1-20. This tile lists all the services installed on the server and specifies their operational status and their Start Type. When you right-click a service, the shortcut menu provides controls that enable you to start, stop, restart, pause, and resume the service.

FIGURE 1-20 The Services tile in Server Manager

The Services tile in the Server Manager display is similar to the traditional Services snap-in for MMC found in previous versions of Windows Server. However, although you can start and stop a service in Server Manager, you cannot modify its Start Type, which specifies whether the service should start automatically with the operating system. To do that you must use the Services MMC snap-in or the Set-Service cmdlet in Windows PowerShell.

Another difference of the Services tile in Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Manager is that this tile appears in many locations throughout Server Manager and in each place it displays a list of services for a different context. This is a good example of the organizational principle of the new Server Manager. The same tools, repeated in many places, provide a consistent management interface to different sets of components.

For example, when you select the All Servers icon in the navigation pane, you first see the Servers tile, as usual, containing all the servers you have added to the Server Manager console. When you select some or all of the servers and scroll down to the Services tile, you see the same display as before, but now it contains all the services for all the computers you selected. This enables you to monitor the services on all the servers at once.

In the same way, when you select one of the role group icons, you can select from the servers running that role and the Services tile will contain only the services associated with that role for the servers you selected.

To manipulate other server configuration settings, you must use the Services snap-in for MMC as mentioned earlier. However, you can launch that, and many other snap-ins, by using Server Manager.

After selecting a server from the Servers pane in any group home page, click the Tools menu to display a list of the utilities and MMC snap-ins, including the Services snap-in. To manage a remote server with an MMC snap-in, you must manually connect it.