Systems Management Server is administered using the SMS Administrator Console, which is an instance of the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). The information you see in the SMS Administrator Console is stored in a Microsoft Management Console file that has a .msc extension. By default, the SMS Administrator console starts with the file Sms.msc, which is located in the Sms\Bin\I386 directory.

The file containing the Systems Management Server management window may become corrupted or deleted, or you may want to customize it. This article describes how to create a new Microsoft Management Console file and how to customize it for use with Systems Management Server.

If your SMS Administrator Console becomes corrupted and you just want to restore it, you can copy the Sms.msc file from your original Systems Management Server CD to the Sms\Bin\I386 directory.

To begin creating a new Microsoft Management Console file, you must open a blank MMC window. You can do this by running Mmc.exe, which is usually located in the Winroot\System32 directory.

When the MMC first starts, it has a blank Console Root window. To add Systems Management Server functionality to the MMC, you must load the Systems Management Server Snap-in. To do this, perform the following steps:

1. On the Console menu, click Add/Remove Snap-In.
2. On the Standalone tab, click Add. A list of avalable Snap-ins is generated.
3. Select the Systems Management Server Snap-in and then click Add.

A wizard will walk you through connecting to your SMS database. You will also be given the option to customize your console tree items. Choose this if you want to customize which items are shown in your console tree and which ones are not. If you want to create a console with the tree items seen in the original SMS Administrator Console, choose the default and load all items into your tree.

When the Snap-in for Systems Management Server is loaded, you will see your Systems Management Server tree in the Console Root window. If you want to set up your console window for Systems Management Server use only, you will want to set Systems Management Server to be the root of the tree. This is how the original SMS Administrator Console is configured. To do this, perform the following steps:

1. Select Systems Management Server from the second level of the tree in the Console Root window.
2. On the Action menu, click New Window From Here. The result will be a new window that has Systems Management Server as its root.

The final step in setting up the MMC to look like the SMS Administrator Console is to set the MMC in to Single Window User Mode. To do this, perform the following steps:

1. On the Console menu, click Options.
2. On the Console tab, set the Console Mode to User Mode - Delegated Access, Single Window.

You can now save the MMC configuration to a .msc file. Use Sms.msc if you are re-creating the SMS Administrator Console. The next time you load this new .msc file, it will come up looking like the SMS Administrator Console and will have any customizations you made.