Emergency Management Services

Emergency Management Services (EMS) provides an RS-232 accessible serial console interface to the bootloader menu on modern versions of Microsoft Windows.

During system installation of Windows Server 2003, EMS is enabled per default in case BIOS serial console redirection is supported and enabled beforehand. Otherwise, and in Windows XP, it is enabled with a command such as the following:

bootcfg /ems on /port com1 /baud 9600 /id 1

On Windows Vista it is enabled by typing the following command where {default} is the OS entry in BCDedit:

BCDedit /bootems {default} ON

In Windows Vista the serial port settings, Baud rate and Port ID, are accessed and modified using the following command:

BCDedit /emssettings EMSPORT:(port) EMSBAUDRATE:(rate)

On Windows Server 2003, this also starts a system console named Special Administration Console (SAC) during operating system run time providing headless server operation.

See also

• System console
• Console server
• Null modem
• NTLDR

References

• IBM Redbooks Technote Enabling Serial Over LAN for a Remote Windows Text Console using OSA SMBridge
• Egan Ford: xCAT Windows NT/2000/XP HOWTO March 2005

External links

• Dell: System Recovery Using Windows Server 2003 on Dell PowerEdge Servers
• Administering Windows Server 2003 Remotely
• Microsoft guide to enable EMS Console