Enabling the Snipping Tool on Windows 2012 R2

I was working a new project looking to document the development environment for both my personal edification and the benefit of future developers. I had Word 2016 installed and was going to use the Snipping tool to create some images to more clearly explain things. The default install of Windows 2012 R2 does not include the snipping too.

To enable the Snipping tool on Windows 2012 R2:

1) Run Server Manager:

2) Click on the Manage menu (upper right)

3) Click on Manage | Add Roles and Features:

4) The quick way to describe what do actions to take in order to install the Snipping Tool is to click Next then Next the Next. So on the previous screen click on Next (1 of 3) which displays the following:

5) The radio button on the previous screen has by default the "Role-based or feature-based installation" option select. This is the desired setting so click on Next (clicking Next 2 of 3) which displays the following:

Note: the environment this blog posting was created on used a lone Windows 20012 R2 running on Oracle's VirtualBox. In the previous screen shot the lone Windows 2012 R2 host (the one running within Virtual Box) is host name, ENCOREV-4UPPD388.

6) Before clicking on next make sure the host selected is the host on which the Snipping Tool is going to be installed. Once the correct host is selected, click Next (Next 3 of 3). In this example, the initially selected server is correct because we are managing a lone host, run within a VirtaulBox virtual machine. Clicking on Next displays the following screen:

7) Click on Next from the previous screen as there are no new roles to install.

8) On the previous screen scroll down until User Interfaces and Infrastructure is displayed and expand this option (see below):

9) Under User Interfaces and Infrastructure check Desktop Experience which will enable the Next button.

10) After clicking on Next additional features may be required to be installed in addition to Desktop Experience. If additional features are required a dialog will be displayed prompting the user to install these additional features:

11) Click on Add Features to install these additional features.

12) Once the additional feature dialog has been closed, click on Install to install the Desktop Experience features

13) After Install is pressed an additional dialog is displayed prompting a user to restart the machine if a restarted is required to install the features. Simply select Yes so the Desktop Experience features will be installed.

Once the install is underway the following screen will be displayed:

Once the Desktop Experience is installed, the virtual machine will reboot. The rebooted server will contain the Snipping Tool. Remember that Snipping Tool requires a minimum resolution for the server's display.