How to Create Custom Server Groups in Server Manager Print

Applies to: Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, and Windows Server 2025.

Custom server groups organize systems by workload, environment, customer, or maintenance window without changing Active Directory.

Prerequisites

• The required servers are already present in the Server Manager pool.
• A documented naming convention for production, staging, and management groups.

Step-by-step procedure

1. In Server Manager, select Manage > Create Server Group.
2. Enter a descriptive group name such as Production-Web-CA.
3. Filter the server pool, select the intended systems, and add them to the group.
4. Save the group and confirm its tile appears in the navigation pane.
5. Open the group and validate that alerts and performance counters refer only to the intended hosts.

PowerShell commands

Get-WindowsFeature | Where-Object InstallState -eq "Installed"
Get-Service WinRM

Verification

Compare the group membership against the approved server inventory and confirm that each server is reachable.

Rollback

Open the group tasks menu and delete the custom group. Deleting a group does not remove or reconfigure its member servers.

Operational and security notes

• Keep production and test systems in separate groups.
• Review group membership after migrations and decommissioning.
• Server Manager groups are an administrative view, not an authorization boundary.

Related resources

For managed Canadian VPS and RDS infrastructure, visit networkmanager.info. See also the official Microsoft Server Manager documentation.