Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) is an essential toolkit for any Active Directory administrator. This tool is designed to help admins manage and maintain various services like DHCP, DNS, AD from a remote machine.
RSAT was first introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 and hence most admins will be familiar with it and would want to install it on their Windows client machine.
You don’t need to download the RSAT tools like in the ‘old’ days. They are now included with the Windows build and just need to be installed. RSAT tools are only supported on Windows Pro and Enterprise versions of Windows 10 & 11.
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How to Install RSAT Tools On Windows 11
You can check whether the RSAT tools have already been installed on the machine by running the command below from an elevated PowerShell session.
Get-WindowsCapability -Name RSAT* -Online | Select-Object -Property DisplayName, StateA list of all the RSAT features along with whether they are installed or not will be displayed.
Follow the steps below to install the RSAT tools on Windows 11.
Login to the Windows 11 machine with admin rights, select Settings -> Apps.
Click on Optional Features.
Within the optional features, click on View Features button.
Type in rsat into the search box and the list of RSAT features will come up.
Select the ones you need and click Next -> Install.
Once the installation has completed, you can access the RSAT tools by navigating to All Apps -> Windows Tools.
Install RSAT Tools On Windows 11 Using PowerShell
You can also install RSAT tools using PowerShell on the Windows 11 machine. Just as it is with the GUI, you can install all the RSAT tools in one go or just the ones you need.
Launch Windows PowerShell (Admin) from the App Launcher.
Run the commmand below to find all the RSAT tools that are available.
Get-WindowsCapability -Name RSAT* -Online | select nameIf you want to selectively install an RSAT tool, copy the name from the output of the above command & run the one below. In my example below, I am installing the AD tools required to manage the domain.
Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name "RSAT.ActiveDirectory.DS-LDS.Tools~~~~0.0.1.0"
Run the commmand below to install all the RSAT tools in one go.
Get-WindowsCapability -Name RSAT* -Online | Add-WindowsCapability –Online
Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments section.
