MMC 3 Console to Run on Windows Server 2008

[bastokyg]

Greetings,

I am designing the UI/UX for an MMC 3 Console and not being a developer, I was wondering if anyone is aware of how customizable MMC 3 actually is. I understand the concept of snap-ins and sub-snap-ins, but from the research I've done on MSDN, and from feedback from a couple of developers, it appears that there is very little that can be done to customize the navigation pane, other than to have a standard tree control (with minor options such as connecting lines or not).

For the past 3 years or so I worked on the design of MOM 2007 and System Center Essentials, and some of the other System Center products, which do NOT use MMC and are therefore able to use Wunderbars (those colored tabs that appear at the bottom of Outlook, MOM, etc.). I want to do something similar on the current product that I'm working on (not at Microsoft) to break up the navigation into "spaces" for role-based administration.

Having worked closely with developers for a long time (I've been a designer in the computer industry for the past 20 years, starting with Windows 3.0), I've seen them come up with some amazing things when others said "it couldn't be done." So, at this point I don't want to take no for an answer, which is why I'm posting this question to the forum.

I guess what I'm asking, in long-winded designer-speak is, can MMC 3 be hacked to work smarter or is it really as limited (at least for navigation) as they say?