Microsoft Launches New Centralized Management Tool for Windows Server and Windows 10

Microsoft is launching a new management platform for Windows Server and Windows 10 machines. The company first launched the tool at Ignite last year as Project “Honolulu”, and it’s now available to all customers as Windows Admin Center.

Windows Admin Center is effectively a centralized solution for managing machines powered by Windows Server and Windows 10. Using Windows Admin Center, IT Pros can easily track, manage, and control their machines from a local, browser-based solution without needing to separately access all the existing tools like Event Manager, Task Manager, Server Manager, etc. in Windows. Windows Admin Center also comes with a platform for extensions which will allow users to further expand the functionalities of the platform with third-party extensions once Microsoft releases the SDK for building extensions.

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It is important to note that Windows Admin Center is a local solution — in other words, it doesn’t require customers to have an Azure account or even an internet connection. Microsoft received a ton of positive response from customers when the tool first launched in a technical preview, with more than 25 thousand deployments across the world. The company says Windows Admin Center is built to work best with Windows Server 2019, which will ship later this year.

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Conversation 16 comments

  • ggolcher

    Premium Member
    12 April, 2018 - 1:47 pm

    <p>Shouldn't this article be in Petri? You know, since it's an IT-focused product, not a consumer-focused product</p>

    • Mehedi Hassan

      Premium Member
      12 April, 2018 - 2:44 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#262339"><em>In reply to ggolcher:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>It's a quiet day 🙂 </p>

    • Patrick3D

      12 April, 2018 - 3:43 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#262339"><em>In reply to ggolcher:</em></a></blockquote><p>If it is going to replace Device Manager, Event Viewer, etc… then it is important to consumers since they rely on those tools as well.</p>

  • woelfel

    12 April, 2018 - 1:48 pm

    <p>But will it be a PWA? 😉 (JK)</p>

  • dcdevito

    12 April, 2018 - 2:01 pm

    <p>Wow, a web app- whowouldaathunkit. Seriously, it's all web now. I bet this becomes a PWA soon</p>

  • yaddamaster

    12 April, 2018 - 4:49 pm

    <p>Update: apparently this cannot be installed on a machine running some insider builds….which matches what I have.</p><p><br></p><p>Well, I was initially somewhat curious to try it out. Downloaded and installed. Annnnnndd……it won't connect my local machine. Site comes up but when you actually try and expand the node representing your local machine – "Couldn't connect. Verify the connection details and then try again."</p><p><br></p><p>Removed the automatically created node and tried re-adding. Warned me it couldn't find (local name of machine) and yup – couldn't find.</p><p><br></p><p>Oh well.</p>

  • Waethorn

    12 April, 2018 - 5:29 pm

    <p>Ok….so why is this not the default Intune management console?</p><p><br></p><p>They talk about product overlap, and this isn't solving anything – it's just adding yet another management option. They need to start dropping management interfaces for consolidated ones. All of these interfaces just add to Windows complexity and insecurity. Most of the management systems for Linux just use direct scripted commands through SSH, or they use industry-standard SNMP. </p><p><br></p><p>Windows has all of these for management protocols:</p><p>msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh128055.aspx</p><p><br></p>

  • Stooks

    13 April, 2018 - 10:19 am

    <p>Got this tool working quick on my Windows 10 VDI. </p><p><br></p><p>I then created a new VM in vCenter based on our current Widows Server 2016 template. It is running LTSB, 1607…the only version of Windows 2016 you should be running. I could not get it to run. Going through the doc's it requires server 2016 version 1709….which I did not even know existed. Apparently it dropped in October, with the 1607 LTSB being the only version I could get on our VL site since 2016 came out.</p><p><br></p><p>Anyhow the geniuses at Microsoft require 1709, which is NOT LTSB, which means it will be eventually forced into feature updates. Why anyone would want to run non-LTSB versions of Windows Server environment is beyond me. Why they won't release new versions of LTSB at least once a year so this kind of stuff does not happen????</p><p><br></p><p>@#$%&amp;^*$!!!! Microsoft is swirling the drain pipe.</p>

    • warren

      13 April, 2018 - 8:04 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#262672"><em>In reply to Stooks:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>First of all…. there is no version of Windows Server 2016 other than the 1607-based LTSB version. Windows Server, version 1709 and 1803 are NOT Windows Server 2016. They're releases in the semi-annual channel. Get it right — it's not complicated, and there's no excuse to still be confused by this several months after it was announced. </p><p><br></p><p>Second…. as for why you'd use the newer versions, it's for containers and relatively short-lived things like web servers. In a private or public cloud environment, you can automate the hell out of creating and destroying VMs and container. That particular install of Windows might last a matter of weeks.</p><p><br></p><p>It's a different philosophy about how you deploy Windows than you may be used to, but it's common in the Linux world.</p>

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