Configuring Hyper-V Remote Management

Edit December 2019

Are you looking how to configure Hyper-V remote management with Windows Hyper-V Server 2019, using the hvremote script? Well, you came to the right place!

I’ve just upgraded my Hyper-V virtual lab to Windows Server Hyper-V 2019, using these same instructions, and it worked flawlessly! If you have any doubts or comments regarding the process, please leave them in the comments section below.

Download Windows Hyper-V Server

Edit May 2018

If you installed the Windows 10 May 2018 security updates make sure your Hyper-V server is also up to date or you will be presented with the following messages, the first when connecting to Remote Desktop and the second when connecting to the Hyper-V management console :

References:

Technet

Introduction

In this article I’m going to describe how to remotely connect to a Hyper-V server, with both the server and the client computer in a workgroup.

The server is running Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016 2019, a standalone workgroup install, which you can download from here and the client is a Windows 10 Professional computer.

As strange as it may seem, configuring remote management for Hyper-V is not as easy as installing the server and remotely connecting to it from another computer on the same network using the Hyper-V administrator username and password! As I found out it requires a bit more of work…

 

Let’s get to it!

Configuring Hyper-V Remote Management

After researching for a while on the internet, I found a very useful video which pointed me in the right direction along with some comments from its viewers. This and a bit of reading on Technet also helped me solve the problem and I’m documenting it here for my future reference, hoping that it will be helpful to the rest of you reading this.

For this article, I’m assuming the Hyper-V server is installed and ready to be configured and that the Hyper-V management tools are installed on the client machine.

 

Download the HVRemote.wsf script

The first step is to download the HVRemote.wsf script. This script will greatly speed up the whole process of configuring the Hyper-V remote management.

Download it from here. Unfortunately the script cannot be found anymore at the previous location. You’ll have to google for it or you can download a copy directly from here.

Rename the script to .wsf (please note that the file is made available as is and I will not be held responsible for any misuse given to it, i.e., if you use it, it’s your responsibility). Save the script to a thumb drive as we will need it on both the server and the client machine.

 

Network environment

Make sure the client can reach the server by hostname instead of its IP address. This can be achieved by adding an entry to the client’s hosts file. To do so, open the hosts file located in “C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc“. Add an entry to the end of the file pointing to the Hyper-V server, as shown in the image below.

In my environment the server is called srvhyperv01 and its IP address is 192.168.4.10

 

Configuring the Hyper-V Server

Plug the thumb drive containing the HVRemote.wsf script to the server. At the server’s command prompt, position yourself at the thumb drive root. To know what drive letter has been assigned to your thumb drive, type “Diskpart” and then “list volume”, as the image below shows. As you can see, to my thumb drive was assigned driver letter “E”.

 

At the root of your thumb drive, type the below (change the username to match your Hyper-V’s administrator username) and press enter.

cscript HVRemote.wsf /add:[user to give access to Hyper-V server] /override

As the script was designed to run under previous versions of Windows Server, use the “/override” switch to prevent the script from checking the OS version and not executing.

 

The script will now execute and if all goes well, you should get about the same result as the image below. Note that you’ll get a warning because we’re not running the script under Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2, and that’s just about it. In the end you get the message that the user was added to Hyper-V Administrators. Let’s move on to the client side.

 

Configuring the Hyper-V Client

Once again, plug the thumb drive containing the script to the machine you’ll be using as the Hyper-V management client. Open an administrator command prompt and place yourself at the root of the thumb drive. In my case, I’ve downloaded the script to the C: drive of my computer and I’ll be running it from there.

Before executing the script we need to add to the client the credentials that will be used to manage the Hyper-V server. To do that type the below (remember that my user is vmadmin. change it accordingly to your configuration):

cmdkey /add:srvhyperv01 /user:vmadmin /pass

You’ll be prompted for the password. After entering it, the credentials are added successfully, as shown below.

 

The next thing to do, because both computers are in a workgroup, is to allow DCOM anonymous logon remote access. To do that we will use the script. Type the following at the client computer and press enter.

cscript hvremote.wsf /anondcom:grant /override

The result should be as following:

 

Now, it’s time to configure WinRM and add the Hyper-V server to the list of WinRM trusted hosts.

For that type winrm quickconfig and press enter. Press “y” at the below message:

 

And “y” again at the next message:

 

Now that the WinRM service is configured, add the server to the TrustedHosts list. For that type the following:

winrm set winrm/config/client @{TrustedHosts=”[HyperVServerName]“}

The output should be as follow:

 

And that should be all! Let’s try to connect to the Hyper-V remote management console. Open the Hyper-V management console and try to connect. Right-click on “Hyper-V Manager” and select “Connect to Server”. Insert the server name and press OK.

 

Et voilá! We are now connected to the Hyper-V server! We are able to see the already created VMs as we also have full access to the menus!

 

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53xFqRaqSno

https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsdesktop/Hyper-V-Remote-Management-26d127c6

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff700227.aspx

 

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