Introducing the new Performance Monitor for Windows
Today, we’re beyond excited to introduce a reimagined Performance Monitor for Windows, available in Preview as part of Windows Admin Center version 1910. Modern design, modern usability, powerful new graph types, the ability to save and share workspaces, and much more.Introducing the VM Conversion tool in Windows Admin Center – Public Preview
As organizations update their infrastructure, a growing number are seeking adaptable, Microsoft-supported solutions that address current requirements while laying the path for future cloud and AI adoption. Azure provides an agile, scalable, cost-effective platform for infrastructure and innovation. Whether by modernizing to cloud technologies like Windows or Linux VMs, containers, Azure VMware Solution or PaaS services, Azure offers a world-class cloud experience. However, we recognize that some organizations must retain workloads on-premises due to data compliance, governance, or other regulatory requirements. For customers wanting to adopt Windows Server and Hyper-V for this use case, we are excited to provide a new option within Windows Admin Center, the VM Conversion tool, in public preview now. This agentless, cost-free tool streamlines the conversion of virtual machines from VMware to Windows Server with Hyper-V, providing customers flexibility with their on-premises virtualization environments while enabling a seamless transition path to Azure when desired. With minimal infrastructure requirements, the tool is particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized organizations. Additionally, with minimal setup time you can download the new VM Conversion tool extension in Windows Admin Center and begin converting virtual machines in under five minutes. Figure 1- VM Conversion tool in Windows Admin Center 🔑Key Features : Agentless, appliance-free discovery After establishing a connection to the virtualization environment, the tool conducts discovery of all virtual machines without requiring agents or appliances and does so in a non-intrusive manner. Minimal downtime The VM Conversion tool enables initial data replication while the source virtual machine remains operational, thereby preventing any interruptions to ongoing applications. After completing this initial replication, on user consent, the source VM is powered down so a subsequent replication pass can capture any data changes made during the first phase. This two-step process ensures that the cutover time from the source to the target VM is minimized. Group servers You can select and migrate up to 10 virtual machines at a time. This reduces manual effort and accelerates the transition to Windows Server. Boot configuration The tool automatically maps BIOS-based virtual machines to Generation 1 and UEFI-based machines to Generation 2, preserving boot configurations and ensuring compatibility. OS agnostic The tool supports conversion of both Linux and Windows guest OS VMs to Windows Server host. Multi-disk VM support Virtual machines that use several virtual hard disks—common in production environments—are fully supported. The operating system, data, and application disks all migrated together, so manual setup is not needed. ⚙️How It Works To ensure a smooth and reliable transition, the tool performs a comprehensive set of built-in prechecks. These checks validate critical VM attributes such as disk types, boot configuration (BIOS or UEFI), destination disk, memory requirements, and several more. By identifying potential issues early, administrators can proactively address them—minimizing the risk of migration failures and reducing downtime during the final cutover. The VM Conversion tool uses change block tracking (CBT) to efficiently replicate data from one virtual disk format to another. During the initial seeding phase, a full copy of the virtual machine is created while it remains online. This minimizes downtime and ensures data integrity. Before the final cutover, a delta replication captures all changes made since the initial copy, ensuring the destination VM is fully up-to-date post conversion to Hyper-V hosts. 🚀Ready to Take the Next Step? The VM Conversion tool is available now in the public feed of Windows Admin Center. You can install it directly from the Extensions settings in Windows Admin Center. To get started, ensure you're running the Windows Admin Center v2 GA release. 📘 For detailed setup instructions and prerequisites, refer to the Public Preview Documentation. 📍 Summary The VM Conversion tool offers a simple, supported path for organizations to streamline VM conversion to Hyper-V virtualization environments. With no added cost and minimal setup, it empowers customers to streamline VM migration and prepare for the cloud at their own pace. Support for Azure Arc-enabled servers is also planned for future releases, further enhancing hybrid management capabilities. We’re continuously evolving the VM Conversion tool based on user feedback. Please continue to share your feedback here and help us prioritize our efforts for future releases. Happy converting!Windows Admin Center version 2110.2 generally available!
With version 2110.2, you'll find: Support for HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) The ability to specify session duration time and also require manage-as sessions to reauthenticate after a set time. Bug fixes Extension updates Read Windows Admin Center version 2110.2 is now generally available! for full details.Windows Admin Center and 503 Service Unavailable error
Windows Admin Center is a browser-based application to manage server environments by using multiple Microsoft products such as System Center, RSAT, and PowerShell. When it is installed in an IIS server, localhost may start displaying “503 Service Unavailable” error.Announcement: New updates to the Containers extension in Windows Admin Center
If you are accustomed to building and managing applications in virtual machines (VMs) getting started with containers can be a daunting proposition. Containers offer a different approach to package and instantiate your workloads along with benefits, such as faster startup and better resource utilization. For a developer, tools like Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are filled with add-ons to package the application being developed into a container. However, up until now ITPros have been left to their luck on how to modernize their applications, and more importantly, how to take the leap from VMs to containers.
[msft.sme.remote-desktop v4.30.2] RDP extension fails to load in WAC 2.4.1
Description Product: Windows Admin Center v2.4.1 Extension: Connect to a server or PC via Remote Desktop ID: msft.sme.remote-desktop Version: 4.30.2 Authors: Microsoft License: MIT Issue: When attempting to launch the Remote Desktop extension, the UI never renders (infinite spinner) and the browser console reports: Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token '<' In addition, certain .js module requests return HTTP 403, and the loader falls back to “null” instead of the correct main.<hash>.js. Steps to Reproduce: Install or enable the msft.sme.remote-desktop extension (v4.30.2) on WAC 2.4.1. Open WAC in a modern browser and navigate to Remote Desktop. Press F12 → Console and Network tabs. Observe: The <base href="/modules/msft.sme.remote-desktop/"> page loads, but subsequent scripts (main.<hash>.js) resolve to “null” or return 403. Console errors Unexpected token '<' Remote Desktop never initializes. Expected Behavior: The RDP extension UI should load normally, register its translation tables, and allow launching a remote session without syntax or module‐loading errors. Impact: Cannot use the built-in Remote Desktop tool within Windows Admin Center. Work-around: deinstalling the remote desktop v4.30.2 and reinstalling the old version v4.26.0 until the problem is resolved in the newer versionWAC Future
I'm curious what the future of Windows Admin Center is? Looking at some of the extensions like Active Directory, DNS, and DHCP you don't get a lot of feature parity with their MMC counterparts. With Linux available in just about every environment, will there every be in the future a way to manage them inside of the admin center? Will be the best way to manage this is through Azure instead of the On-Premises Windows Admin Center. Thanks.
Windows Admin Center 2110 - Storage Migration Service (Missing Start Transfer button)
Hi guys, testing out Storage Migration Service on the latest Windows Admin Center version 2110. At the transfer phase, somehow the Start Transfer button to start the migration is missing. Anyone else facing this? All validation is passed and tested on a few different VMs and its still showing the same. Is this a bug, or am i missing something? Refer to the picture.
