Disable Autostart of Server Manager

Introduction

With Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2 Microsoft added a Server Manager Console.  This is a handy console for adding roles, features, checking services, event logs etc.  Basically all the general administration tasks associated with a server.

Along with the introduction of this console they created a default scheduled task that is triggered by a user logon event.

But, as helpful as this is there are times when it’s just plain annoying. Say for example when the server is being used as a terminal server. It’s also not immediately apparent how to stop

Resolution

The good news is this can be easily rectified.

To disable this “feature” Click Start and navigate to Administrative Tools and then Task Scheduler.
Within Task Scheduler navigate to Task Scheduler (Local) > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Server Manager

Once you have highlighted Server Manager you will see there is a task listed with the name of ServerManager.  If we right click on this Task and select properties we can look in to the details of this task.

By selecting the triggers tab we can see that this task is triggered by a logon event of any user to this system.  We have a couple of options here.  By editing the default trigger we can specify a specific user like Administrator for example where the task will be triggered.  The downside, if you wanted to allow the task to run for more than one user then you would need to add a trigger for each user.

The other option we have is to disable the task completely; this can be done by right clicking on the task in the main scheduler window and selecting disable.   This will disable the task and prevent it running for all users.

Conclusion

We are seeing the Microsoft Task Scheduler function being used more and more for automating tasks which are triggered by an event, I have even written another article here where the power of the task scheduler service in combination with other Microsoft Products can help to achieve a final goal: https://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Email_Servers/Exchange/A_2581-Notify-External-Recipient-of-email-arrival.html 

But, unless you know where to look and that the task scheduler service can even perform these types of functions (yes, the Task Scheduler service has grown up somewhat in the last few versions of Windows) it can be a little frustrating.

Written by Glen Knight (demazter) as part of a series of how-to articles.  If you find the article useful please click the Yes button to vote for it :)