Windows Admin Center

[msm1000]

I am looking to try this next week - i can see it uses.

[Tefters]

Been running Honolulu for a long time now and it’s great.

I personally installed it on a server and it was very straight forward, there are a few gotcha’s to be aware:

 

1. WMF needs to be updated to 2016 version on non 2016 servers and workstations. I dumped out over SCCM, GPO works too.

2. WinRM service needs to be enabled and automatic, again simple GPO.

3. Use with IE for passthrough SSO, it’s a MS product after all!

4. Each user/machine gets its own view when browsing to the webpage because of the Kerberos ticket SSO and setting up server initially is a little time (10 mins).

4. Careful with the certificate during install, I ended up using our wildcard cert.

 

Overall the system resource monitoring is great and remote management / install mechanics are a breath of fresh air.

This is definitely the replacement for Server Manager that’s for sure.

[Tefters]

I get exactly the same behaviour and have done since the betas of Honolulu.

 

Snap.

Known bug on the list, seems it didn’t get fixed in beta.

[Arthur]

Click the link to find out what's new.

 

Windows Admin Center 1904 GA update is now available!

 

There are too many additions to list them all, so here’s a summary of some key new and improved features added to Windows Admin Center since 1809…

 

 

[Tefters]

Holy smokes Batman, that's a huge upgrade!

 

Finally getting AD tools on-board.

[pete]

Testing 1904 and it's nice, but does anyone else think the feedback (initiate task/instruction, receive aknowledgement of instruction and progress) is a bit lacking in areas? For example:

 

1. Connect to server via WAC
   
2. Tell it to install pending updates from WSUS and reboot afterwards
   
3. Get swirly thing for ages
   
4. Go into process list - see ngen.exe is thrashing CPU, so realise .Net patches are installing.
   

 

A "that worked" confirmation would be nice.

 

I do get a "RemoteException: Exception from HRESULT: 0x8024500C" whenever I load the Windows Update menu item on WAC, but that may just be a "I can't talk to the Internet for Windows Updates" whining.

Edited May 15, 2019 by pete

[Arthur]

Introducing the new Performance Monitor for Windows

 

As the administrator of Windows computers and servers, you deserve the best tools to understand how features, apps, and devices are working. When you need to troubleshoot why something is slow or broken, there’s no source of truth more trusty or versatile than Windows performance counters.

 

The classic user interface for perf counters, Performance Monitor or perfmon.exe, hasn’t changed much since it was added to Windows in 1993. (That’s right – over 25 years ago!) It’s difficult to learn and time-consuming to use. It could be way, way better.

 

Today, we’re beyond excited to introduce a reimagined Performance Monitor:

 

The new Performance Monitor tool is available today in Preview as part of Windows Admin Center version 1910, which you can download here. It runs in your default browser, doesn’t depend on any other software or services, and works with all recent versions of Windows Server and Windows 10.

 

 

[jthompson]

Having trouble with WAC and hoping some of you can help. I've got it installed on my PC rather than on any servers. If I log into my PC as an administrator, I can run WAC and it all works, can connect to servers, etc.

 

However, I generally use my PC as a non-admin user. Launching WAC as my non-admin user results in no browser window appearing and my mouse cursor blinking the busy pointer on an off for ever. If I run the underlying SmeDesktop exe as another user, giving my admin user credentials, I get Edge opening up, I get the cert prompt but then "You are not authorized to view this page. If you recently updated Windows Admin Center, you may need to restart your browser, and then refresh the page." Whatever I try from then on, I get no further.

 

Has anyone else encountered this? Are you able to run WAC without sitting there as an admin?

[jthompson]

I think I've untangled whatever privileges knot I was in with this. I've now installed WAC on a server to work as a WAC gateway and configured the security groups in the access options. The error message I was getting is what is shown if a user attempts to connect to WAC but isn't in the gateway users or gateway admins groups.

 

It seems nice, although it'd be helpful to be able to tailor the UI by pinning some favourite items or something.

 

Are the AD, DHCP and DNS extensions worth having? I can't get the extensions list to populate at the moment, so wondering if I should bother with them just now.