There are a few ways that you can help Windows 7
users remotely. A couple of ways, Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop. But there are some other tools
that you can use to help manage Windows 7—such as Windows Remote
Management and Windows PowerShell.
1. Windows Remote Management
The Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
utility is Microsoft's version of the WS-Management Protocol. The
WS-Management Protocol is an industry standard protocol that allows
different vendor operating systems and hardware to work together. There
are three main ways to access the WinRM utility:
The WinRM utility allows you to
remotely execute commands and obtain management data from local and
remote computers. You can use the WinRM utility on both Windows-based
operating systems and non-Windows-based operating systems.
Table 1 shows the different command-line WinRM commands and descriptions of what each command will accomplish.
Table 1. WinRM Commands and Descriptions
| Command | Description |
|---|
| WinRM g or WinRM get | Retrieves management information |
| WinRM s or WinRM set | Modifies management information |
| WinRM c or WinRM create | Creates a new instance on the managed resources |
| WinRM d or WinRM delete | Removes an instance from a managed resource |
| WinRM e or WinRM enumerate | Lists all instances of a managed resource |
| WinRM i or WinRM invoke | Executes a method on a managed resource |
| WinRM I d or WinRM identity | Determines whether a WS-Management implementation is running on a remote machine |
| WinRM quickconfig | Configures a machine to accept WS-Management commands from a remote machine |
| WinRM configSDDL | Modifies an existing security descriptor for a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) |
| WinRM he1pmsg | Displays error messages for an error code |
Now that you have looked at
WinRM, let's take a look at how to remotely manage a Windows 7 machine
by using the Windows PowerShell utility.
2. Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerSbeil
is a command-line scripting utility that allows you to remotely execute
commands on a Windows 7 machine. Windows PowerShell is a command line
utility that was specifically designed for system administrators to
allow for remote administration.
One of the advantages of Windows PowerShell is that Windows PowerShell introduced the concept of a cmdlet. A cmdlet
is a command that is built into Windows PowerShell. There are over 100
built-in cmdlets, and you can build your own cmdlets and allow others to
use these homemade cmdlets.
Another advantage of
Windows PowerShell is that Windows PowerShell allows you to gain access
to a file system on a computer. Windows PowerShell also allows you to
access the Registry, digital certificate stores, and other data stores.
Table 2 defines a few of the cmdlets in Windows PowerShell.
Table 2. Windows PowerShell cmdlets
| cmdlet | Definition |
|---|
| Clear-Hi story | Deletes entries from the command history |
| Invoke-command | Runs commands on local or remote computers |
| Start-job | Starts a Windows PowerShell background job |
| Stop-job | Stops a Windows PowerShell background job |
| Remove-job | Deletes a Windows PowerShell background job |
| Import-Module | Adds modules to the current session |
| Receive-job | Gets the results of a Windows PowerShell background job |
| Format-table | Shows the results in a table format |
| Out-file | Sends the job results to a file |
| Get-Date | Gets the date and time |
| Set -Date | Sets the system time and date on a computer |
| Get-event | Gets an event in the event queue |
| New-event | Creates a new event |
| Trace -command | Configures and starts a trace of a command on a machine |
Complete Exercise 1 to start the Windows PowerShell utility.
Start the Windows PowerShell utility by clicking Start => All Programs => - Accessories => Windows PowerShell 'r Windows PowerShell. The utility is just called Windows PowerShell 3nd it is under the Windows PowerShell folder.
When
the Windows PowerShell utility starts, type Help and press Enter. This
will show you the Windows PowerShell syntax and some of the commands
included with Windows PowerShell. At the Windows PowerSHell command prompt, type Get-Date This will show you the system's date and time. At the Windows command prompt, type Help *. This will show you all the cmdlet commands that you can use. Close the Windows PowerShell utility.
|
Using the WinRM and Windows
PowerShell utilities gives you the ability to remotely configure and
administer a Windows 7 machine.
