Cannot run Administrative Tools via Start Menu

I'm having a really strange issue.

I'm well aware the extra steps you have to go to install the Windows 2003
AdminPak on Vista RTM (install via MSI, and then register all the dlls).
This is fine. In fact it was working fine for a few months now.

All of a sudden, I cannot open up any of the MMC snap-ins from the Adminpak
by way of the Start Menu -> Administrative Tools. For some odd reason when I
select any tool that was installed by the Admin Pak (i.e. AD Users and
Computers), NOTHING HAPPENS. It's like I didn't click on anything at all.

I've tried to hold down shift, right click, Run-As to run as administrator.
This also yielded no results. I get no errors or anything. Nothing happens.

If I drill down to where these shortcuts are on the file system
(c:\programdata\microsoft\windows\start menu\Programs\Administrative Tools),
I can double click on the shortcuts with NO PROBLEM. Everything works that
way.

It almost seems as if my start menu is broken with these specific shortcuts.
What in the world is going on here???

I even went as far as to create a new toolbar on my taskbar pointing to the
actual location of the shortcuts mentioned above. This does NOT work either.
Something within Explorer is broken and I have no idea where this could be.

I've uninstalled/reinstalled the AdminPak to no avail.

I hope someone has a fix for this. I can't find anything anywhere.

"Matthew" <> wrote...
> I'm having a really strange issue.
> I'm well aware the extra steps you have to go to install the Windows 2003
> AdminPak on Vista RTM (install via MSI, and then register all the dlls).
> This is fine. In fact it was working fine for a few months now.
> All of a sudden, I cannot open up any of the MMC snap-ins from the
> Adminpak

Hi Matthew,

I dunno the answer to your problem (so maybe I should just shut up :-), but
.... as you're probably aware, the Windows Server 2003 Admin Pak is not
compatible with Vista. I've heard many anecdotal reports of various
problems, similar to the one you're experiencing (even after registering the
DLLs etc). If you can find a solution (or if anyone here knows of a
solution) that's great, use it. But overall, I'd suggest you have to keep a
*very* low expectation of the tools working reliably on Vista.

Especially (in my experience) the Active Directory Users and Computers
snap-in plays up, even when it runs - icons disappear, drag-n-drop doesn't
work, etc.

Apparently Microsoft's plan is to release a "Remote Server Administration
Tools" for Vista (RSAT) as a web download. This will ship shortly after
Vista SP1 RTM ships. See here for some details:
http://blogs.technet.com/kevinremde/...dmin-pack.aspx

For now, I am working around it by using Remote Desktop into my servers, to
do administration. I think this is what the Microsft guys expected people
would do anyway, as a normal practice; which is why they didn't give
priority to Server tools for Vista. They may have been surprised by the
backlash from administrators. Obviously many folks *want* to run the tools
remotely, from their desktops.

I hope you manage to find a solution for this problem, while we wait for the
RSAT!
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

Thanks for the reply Andrew.

While I fully understand that I shouldn't hold my breath regarding getting
this fixed due to it blatantly not being supported, I must admit that I hope
this answer will not be the end-all response that kills this post.

Here is a quote from the page you referenced.
[quote]
“The new feature with codename “Remote Server Administration Tools� (RSAT –
Client) for managing WS08 from Vista SP1 Business, Enterprise and Ultimate
will be released as an OOB [Out of Band] component shortly after Vista SP1
RTM. In the meantime, you can leverage the Admin Pack for managing WS03
servers remotely (Instructions Here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930056).
The old Admin Pack will not work against WS08, though.�
[end quote]

The blog entry you referenced does present a couple of things of interest.
1) the new RSAT is intended to manage Server 2008. It does not specifically
state that it can manage Server 2003. I guess this is implied from the
statement "...in the meantime, you can leverage the Admin Pack for managing
Server 2003...".
2) It provides a KB article (930056) that contains instructions from MS on
how to get the Admin Pack installed and functioning in Vista, with some
limitations that are only resolvable by running the Admin Pack tools from a
non-Vista machine.

In light of item 2 above, it would stand to reason that Admin Pack on Vista
is supported, albeit in a very limited nature. I'm not even fully sure my
issue stems from incompatibility between the Admin Pack and Vista. If I
manually run the .msc snap-ins, or create my own via MMC, everything works
fine.

Something happened to the special shortcuts that the Admin Pack installer
created. These are special MSI shortcuts, with the target path greyed out of
course. They used to work fine.

At the very least I could just manually recreate all of the shortcuts myself
and point directly to the .msc files, but I didn't want to have to do that.
Something broke on my system and I'd like to get it fixed, not circumvented.

"Andrew McLaren" wrote:

> "Matthew" <> wrote...
> > I'm having a really strange issue.
> > I'm well aware the extra steps you have to go to install the Windows 2003
> > AdminPak on Vista RTM (install via MSI, and then register all the dlls).
> > This is fine. In fact it was working fine for a few months now.
> > All of a sudden, I cannot open up any of the MMC snap-ins from the
> > Adminpak
>
> Hi Matthew,
>
> I dunno the answer to your problem (so maybe I should just shut up :-), but
> ... as you're probably aware, the Windows Server 2003 Admin Pak is not
> compatible with Vista. I've heard many anecdotal reports of various
> problems, similar to the one you're experiencing (even after registering the
> DLLs etc). If you can find a solution (or if anyone here knows of a
> solution) that's great, use it. But overall, I'd suggest you have to keep a
> *very* low expectation of the tools working reliably on Vista.
>
> Especially (in my experience) the Active Directory Users and Computers
> snap-in plays up, even when it runs - icons disappear, drag-n-drop doesn't
> work, etc.
>
> Apparently Microsoft's plan is to release a "Remote Server Administration
> Tools" for Vista (RSAT) as a web download. This will ship shortly after
> Vista SP1 RTM ships. See here for some details:
> http://blogs.technet.com/kevinremde/...dmin-pack.aspx
>
> For now, I am working around it by using Remote Desktop into my servers, to
> do administration. I think this is what the Microsft guys expected people
> would do anyway, as a normal practice; which is why they didn't give
> priority to Server tools for Vista. They may have been surprised by the
> backlash from administrators. Obviously many folks *want* to run the tools
> remotely, from their desktops.
>
> I hope you manage to find a solution for this problem, while we wait for the
> RSAT!
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>
>

Just additional information regarding my specific issue for anyone that may
have some insight.

My issue, while seemingly related strictly to the 2003 Admin Pack, seems to
be more related to how Explorer interfaces with the special shortcuts the MSI
installer creates.

For example, I can launch the special shortcut if I launch it from within a
Windows Explorer window via double click. I can't however launch with this
icon if I do it via a menu (be it from my start menu, or via a custom toolbar
on my taskbar).

I've even tried copying the shortcut from the Administrative Tools location
over to a new directory and creating a special toolbar shortcut for it. It
just won't work when launched from a menu/toolbar.

If I create my own shortcut directly to the .msc file, it works either way.

Again I stress this worked totally fine for several months. Something broke
that functionality, and I have no idea when that happened. I normally use a
custom MMC snapin for many of my regular ADUC tasks, but today I needed to
launch AD Sites n Services and noticed it didn't work, which lead me to
testing all the other ones, including the default ADUC.

Windows is so frustrating sometimes. Especially with how it ties into MSI
related components. Grrrr!

OK just some additional info to this topic.

Apparently this has NOTHING to do with the Administrative Tools on Vista,
per se. It seems ALL of my MSI created (self healing) shortcuts are broken
(for any application).

WTF.

I guess I'll have to post this elsewhere. Not sure if this is Vista related
or not. I've never seen this before on any OS.

"Matthew" wrote:

> Just additional information regarding my specific issue for anyone that may
> have some insight.
>
> My issue, while seemingly related strictly to the 2003 Admin Pack, seems to
> be more related to how Explorer interfaces with the special shortcuts the MSI
> installer creates.
>
> For example, I can launch the special shortcut if I launch it from within a
> Windows Explorer window via double click. I can't however launch with this
> icon if I do it via a menu (be it from my start menu, or via a custom toolbar
> on my taskbar).
>
> I've even tried copying the shortcut from the Administrative Tools location
> over to a new directory and creating a special toolbar shortcut for it. It
> just won't work when launched from a menu/toolbar.
>
> If I create my own shortcut directly to the .msc file, it works either way.
>
> Again I stress this worked totally fine for several months. Something broke
> that functionality, and I have no idea when that happened. I normally use a
> custom MMC snapin for many of my regular ADUC tasks, but today I needed to
> launch AD Sites n Services and noticed it didn't work, which lead me to
> testing all the other ones, including the default ADUC.
>
> Windows is so frustrating sometimes. Especially with how it ties into MSI
> related components. Grrrr!

I have resolved my own issue. With the help of some broad scope newsgroup
searching, I was lead to the possibility that some program added some Context
Menu handlers to Explorer and that may be the cause of the problem.

Sure enough a program I installed called Security Explorer (by ScriptLogic)
added a context menu for the program. Upon disabling that option via the
program, my issue is now resolved. If I re-enable the context menu
integration my problem returns.

I am leaving it disabled and have attempted to contact their support for a
potential resolution. I thought I'd share my findings in case someone else
happened to run across this issue.

Spread the knowledge!

Thank you,

"Matthew" wrote:

> OK just some additional info to this topic.
>
> Apparently this has NOTHING to do with the Administrative Tools on Vista,
> per se. It seems ALL of my MSI created (self healing) shortcuts are broken
> (for any application).
>
> WTF.
>
> I guess I'll have to post this elsewhere. Not sure if this is Vista related
> or not. I've never seen this before on any OS.
>
> "Matthew" wrote:
>
> > Just additional information regarding my specific issue for anyone that may
> > have some insight.
> >
> > My issue, while seemingly related strictly to the 2003 Admin Pack, seems to
> > be more related to how Explorer interfaces with the special shortcuts the MSI
> > installer creates.
> >
> > For example, I can launch the special shortcut if I launch it from within a
> > Windows Explorer window via double click. I can't however launch with this
> > icon if I do it via a menu (be it from my start menu, or via a custom toolbar
> > on my taskbar).
> >
> > I've even tried copying the shortcut from the Administrative Tools location
> > over to a new directory and creating a special toolbar shortcut for it. It
> > just won't work when launched from a menu/toolbar.
> >
> > If I create my own shortcut directly to the .msc file, it works either way.
> >
> > Again I stress this worked totally fine for several months. Something broke
> > that functionality, and I have no idea when that happened. I normally use a
> > custom MMC snapin for many of my regular ADUC tasks, but today I needed to
> > launch AD Sites n Services and noticed it didn't work, which lead me to
> > testing all the other ones, including the default ADUC.
> >
> > Windows is so frustrating sometimes. Especially with how it ties into MSI
> > related components. Grrrr!