Installing the Hyper-V Tools for Remote Management in Windows 7

Introduction

For any physical server running Windows 2008, you might as well enable Hyper-V. This way, you can get more use out of that one server by running multiple servers on it, and utilize unused CPU and RAM. So once you enable Hyper-V, how are you going to manage it from your desktop PC? You do not want to have to use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to connect to the server and launch the Hyper-V manager, every time that you want to administer Hyper-V. Thus, you need the Hyper-V tools for remote management up and running whenever you need them.

Honestly, when I started looking at this, I didn’t think it would be so complex. Having used VMware ESX / vSphere extensively, I thought that this process would be similar. With ESX Server, you download the vSphere client directly from the ESX server via your web browser. You install the vSphere client, and sha-bam, you are managing your ESX Server.

However, with Hyper-V, you can’t just install the tools on your PC and start using them. First, you must enable remote management on the Hyper-V server.

If you don’t configure the Hyper-V server for remote administration and try to run the Hyper-V remote management tools from your desktop, you’ll get the error message “you do not have the required permission to complete this task” when you attempt to connect to the Hyper-V Server using the remote management tools.


Figure 1

I will show you how to both enable Hyper-V remote management and install the Hyper-V remote management tools on your desktop PC.

Enabling Remote Management for Hyper-V on the server

There is a ridiculously long list of steps that need to be performed in order to enable remote management with a Hyper-V server. These steps are listed in the Microsoft TechNet article Install and Configure Hyper-V Tools for Remote Administration. But trust me; you don’t want to have to go through many pages of instructions.

Instead, there is a great script by Microsoft’s John Howard called HVRemote. This script is downloaded and run on your Windows 2008 Hyper-V server and used to authorize remote Hyper-V administration.

Download it from the link above. The website is shown in Figures 2 and 3.


Figure 2


Figure 3

Once downloaded, put it in a place easy to get to, like your Desktop. Start up an administrator-level command prompt, as you see in Figure 4.


Figure 4

If you try to run the script, just by itself, you’ll see the error in Figure 5.


Figure 5

To properly run it, you will use cscript, then the name of the script, followed by some options. From your elevated command prompt, you need to do 4 things:

  1. Add user rights on server for the client

    cscript hvremote.wsf /add:domain\user (if machine is in a domain)

    or

    cscript hvremote.wsf /add:user (if machine is in a workgroup)


Figure 6

  1. Add a firewall exceptions on the client, if needed
    cscript hvremote.wsf /mmc:enable
  2. Allow DCOM access on the client, if needed
    cscript hvremote.wsf /anondcom:grant
  3. Reboot client and server

From here, you can double check your configuration on client and server –

cscript hvremote.wsf /show /target:servercomputername

cscript hvremote.wsf /show /target:clientcomputername

All of these steps are covered in much greater detail in the documentation for HVRemote.

In my case, all I did was step #1 for the domain user and then logged in as the same domain user on my PC.

Installing Hyper-V Remote Management Tools in Windows 7

Now, another hurdle is that you can’t just install the tools used to manage a Hyper-V server remotely. You have to install the Windows Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) which performs a very long list of remote server management tasks for you. In this article, I will just cover the Hyper-V related features of RSAT. If you would like full information on RSAT, visit the Petri IT Knowledgebase Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) article.

RSAT comes in a 32 and 64 bit version and it only works on Windows 7 Pro, Enterprise, and Ultimate. To get started, download the appropriate version for your computer at: Windows 7 RSAT Tools. I downloaded the 64-bit 222MB RSAT tools and ran the installation program.

I said YES, that I wanted to install the software update.


Figure 7

Then, I accepted the license terms.


Figure 8

Soon thereafter, installation was completed.


Figure 9

Once installed, you can’t use the Hyper-V Tools yet. First, you must go into Control Panel and click on Programs.


Figure 10

 Now, click Turn Windows Features on or off.


Figure 11

Now, enable the Hyper-V Tools, as you see in Figure 12.


Figure 12

It takes a few minutes to install the tools.


Figure 13

When completed, you won’t get any confirmation, the install box will just disappear. However, you should go into your Start menu and to Administrative Tools, then look for the Hyper-V Manager, as you see in Figure 14.


Figure 14

Once it is started, Connect to Server and specify your Hyper-V Server, as you see in Figure 15.


Figure 15

At this point, you should have successfully connected to your Hyper-V Server, remotely, from your Windows 7 desktop system. It should look like the graphic in Figure 16, below.


Figure 16

From here, you should be able to perform remote control on your VMs, create new VM, and check out resource utilization.

Summary

While installation of the Hyper-V Manager remotely on Windows 7 (or any other Windows OS) was more difficult than I thought it would be, once I know how it all works, it’s not hard at all. However, this is only true thanks to the HVRemote script that authorizes remote users to connect to your Hyper-V server. If I had to do it manually, based on the original instructions, I think I would have given up. Hopefully, your first time installing Hyper-V remote management tools are much easier for you than they were for me, thanks to this step by step how-to article.

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