The new Windows Admin Center

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
It's actually not that new, the preview (which is all that's available right now) was announced over a year ago, but I've only just come across it in relation to the Windows Performance Monitor so I thought it worth mentioning here. This tool also explains why the existing Performance Monitor is seemingly deprecated (although Microsoft haven't said so - yet).

Basically the Windows Admin Center is a browser based tool that allows you to manage many computers from one place, it's still useful for managing just the one computer too. What's interesting for me is the new Performance Monitor that's included in the Windows Admin Tool.

Because it's a preview tool still it takes a bit of work to get it to install and connect to your PC. I had to change the TrustedHosts list, add a registry key, and set a couple of services to automatic start for example, so it's not a tool for novices (who would get next to nothing out of it in any case). The best tutorial I have found on how to get the preview installed and running is here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials...centrally-manage-all-your-windows-10-pcs.html. The biggest problem I came across was getting the admin centre running on the browser to connect to my local PC, if anyone needs pointers let me know. :)

As I mentioned, what interested me most is the Performance Monitor that's included as a pre-installed extension in the Windows Admin Center. It's started from a menu list on the left pane in the browser session. All the familiar data counters (see https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/threads/using-the-performance-monitor.60203/) are there but the display is much easier to see, you get one graph per counter instead of all of them on one graph as before. You can also save the workspace and use that set of counters again, you can export the entire workspace (to a .json file) and you can download the raw data for any graph as a (comma-separated) .csv file for offline analysis. I'm still playing with it but it looks to be a big improvement on the old performance monitor in terms of usability and in look and feel.

You can learn more about the new performance monitor at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com...w-performance-monitor-for-windows/ba-p/957991, more about the Windows Admin Center in general is at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-admin-center-blog/bg-p/Windows-Admin-Center-Blog.

:)
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
It's an excellent tool. For servers, it's been around for just over two years, and it's a brilliant tool for businesses that can't or won't buy config manager and ops manager.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
It's an excellent tool. For servers, it's been around for just over two years, and it's a brilliant tool for businesses that can't or won't buy config manager and ops manager.
This is heavily based on their Azure / Windows server management toolset isn't it.

It's really nice, I'm going to be implementing it at home to test out.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Got it up and running eventually. It's now a gold release version so you don't get the option to download a preview as in the guide, you now get to download a neverending evaluation version:

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This really is a fantastic tool for home users, as well as of course for skint businesses.

I absolutely love the fact it's got FULL VM Management from within the browser, and the fact you can attach VHD's to view contents. Very powerful! Azure connection as well is very nice. Plus registry.... the list goes on, very powerful indeed!

Thanks so much for highlighting! This is a massive time saver!
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
One odd limitation though, I've noticed. Despite it's close integration with Azure, it can't seemingly manage azure AD (only) joined workstations.

Finds on-premise AD joined and hybrid-joined (as you'd' expect as they live in both worlds) but not Azure only. Seems an odd oversight.
 
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