Home-lab Manage Hyper-V Core with Windows Admin Center

Photo by Massimo Botturi on Unsplash

Hyper-V dynamic memory management gives very flexible and efficient way to manage windows based virtual machines. It is free but only problem with Hyper-V server is lack of GUI and installation of RSAT based tools need a lot of effort to make it work .

Install Hyper-V (in this example Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 is used)on your hardware and do tie initial configuration for IP and Remote Desktop Access. Download Windows Admin Center Unlimited Trial from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-admin-center. Copy the downloaded file to a usb flash and plug that flash in newly installed Hyper-V Host.

• Access the Hyper-V through Remote Desktop .
• In Command Window of Hyper-V write powershell and press enter.
• Go to the USB Flash in my case it was assigned Drive Letter E:
• Press Tab or Write .\WindowsAdminCenterXX.msi in Prompt and press Enter

• Accept the License Terms and Click Next
• Follow the prompt until Configure Gateway Endpoint Section
• Select Port if you are intending to use any other than standard SSL TC/443
• Select Redirect HTTP port 80 traffic to HTTPS to make access easier.
• Click Install

• After some time wizard will finish the configuration and will display Finish dialogue.
• This will also show the URL or FQDN to open Windows Admin Center.
• Note down the URL which is the name of the server .
• Click Finish.

• Open Web browser in any other computer on your network.
• Enter the URL of the Hyper-V server form the prompt above.
• Accept the certificate warning and enter the Server Administrator username and password whihc in most cases is Administrator & **********

• Windows Admin Center Main Page will open in a while showing the Hyper-V Server (Gateway ).
• Click on the Server Name and Enter the Administrator User and Password in Prompted.

Windows Admin Center Main Page will open for the Hyper-V Server showing the Server Information as below

From right pane scroll down and select the Virtual Machines and Select Inventory to create the Virtual Machine.

To connect a virtual machine console Click more and download RDP file .

Originally published at https://affan.info on June 26, 2020.