Adding items to the console tree

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Adding items to the console tree

You can help users locate the components they need in the console by arranging items hierarchically or in groups on the console tree. To add items to the console tree, use the Add/Remove Snap-in command on the File menu of the main toolbar of MMC.

In the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box, Snap-ins added to determines the item on the console tree under which new items are added. The default value is Console Root. Click an item in Snap-ins added to to locate an object elsewhere on the console tree.

The Add Standalone Snap-in dialog box displays a list of available snap-ins. For computers that are members of a domain, this list includes both locally-installed snap-ins and snap-ins published in the Active Directory directory service. For snap-ins that are available in Active Directory, Not Installed appears in the Vendor column.

If you have already installed a snap-in, and you want to enable one of its extension snap-ins, use the Extensions tab in the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box. On this tab, select any item in the console tree that can be extended and view the extension snap-ins that you can enable or disable. When you enable an extension snap-in, it is automatically inserted in the console tree under the selected item. If there is more than one instance of a snap-in on the console tree, all instances of the snap-in are extended.

After an extension snap-in is enabled, you might notice that it appears in Snap-ins that can be extended along with the stand-alone snap-ins. This means that the extension snap-in also has extensions that you can enable.

Like stand-alone snap-ins, an administrator can also publish extension snap-ins in Active Directory. Extension snap-ins available to a user from Active Directory appear in the list of available extension snap-ins with any locally installed extension snap-ins, except that they are followed by the phrase (not installed). You must specifically download extension snap-ins from the directory service to make them available in a console. Thus, to download all extensions for a given item, do not select the Add all extensions check box on the Extensions tab of the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box. Instead, clear this check box and select the check boxes next to each extension that you want to download.

To add multiple instances of the same snap-in to a console either to manage multiple remote computers from the same console or to repair a damaged console, add a new instance of the snap-in to the console, configure it as needed, and then remove the old instance of the snap-in from the console. You might need to do this if you noticed that a tool is behaving differently from expected, that its configuration is outdated, or that it is timing out because resources have been removed.

For information about adding items to the console tree, see Add a snap-in to a new MMC console for a local computer, Add a published snap-in to a new MMC console, Add an extension snap-in to an MMC console, and Add a published extension snap-in to an MMC console.