Seeing Red in Server Manager 2012?

Does the Server Manager console in Windows Server 2012 always seem to show your Roles and Servers Groups in Red due to “Manageability” errors that say “Online – Cannot get BPA results” ? This seems to be a pretty common situation simply because the “Best Practice Analyzer” (BPA) scan has not been performed, and it does not happen automatically. Personally I think this would be better suited as a Warning rather than an Error, but it is what it is. Let me show you how to “fix” it.

Open your Server Manager and from the Dashboard click the All Servers grouping.

Scroll down to the Best Practices Analyzer and from the Tasks menu select “Start BPA Scan”. 

This will present you with a list of all the servers your console is currently managing. Check the ones you want to perform the scan on and click Start Scan.

You can monitor the scan progress under the Notifications Flag or click on “Task Details” to see more. 

When the scan completes you may find some errors and warnings that the BPA has identified. Be sure to read them over and address the problems where appropriate, however some of them may not be relevant to your deployment. In those cases you can right click the message and select “Exclude Result”. 

Once you’ve addressed the problems or excluded the irrelevant ones you should have a nice green board in your server manager. N’joy!