Remotely manage Hyper-V hosts with Hyper-V Manager

This article lists the supported combinations of Hyper-V hosts and Hyper-V Manager versions and describes how to connect to remote and local Hyper-V hosts so you can manage them.

Hyper-V Manager lets you manage a small number of Hyper-V hosts, both remote and local. It's installed when you install the Hyper-V Management Tools, which you can do either through a full Hyper-V installation or a tools-only installation. Doing a tools-only installation means you can use the tools on computers that don't meet the hardware requirements to host Hyper-V. For details about hardware for Hyper-V hosts, see System requirements. If Hyper-V Manager isn't installed, follow the instructions to Install Hyper-V Manager.

Connect to a Hyper-V host

To connect to a Hyper-V host from Hyper-V Manager, right-click Hyper-V Manager in the left pane, and then click Connect to Server.

Manage Hyper-V on a local computer

Hyper-V Manager doesn't list any computers that host Hyper-V until you add the computer, including a local computer. To do this:

  1. In the left pane, right-click Hyper-V Manager.
  2. Click Connect to Server.
  3. From Select Computer, click Local computer and then click OK.

If you can't connect:

  • It's possible that only the Hyper-V tools are installed. To check that Hyper-V platform is installed, look for the Virtual Machine Management service. To do so: Open the Services desktop app: click Start, click the Start Search box, type services.msc, and then press Enter. If the Virtual Machine Management service isn't listed, install the Hyper-V platform by following the instructions in Install Hyper-V.
  • Check that your hardware meets the requirements. See System requirements.
  • Check that your user account belongs to the Administrators group or the Hyper-V Administrators group.

Manage Hyper-V hosts remotely

To manage remote Hyper-V hosts, enable remote management on both the local computer and remote host.

On Windows Server, open Server Manager >Local Server >Remote management and then click Allow remote connections to this computer.

Or, from either operating system, open Windows PowerShell as Administrator and run:

Enable-PSRemoting

Connect to hosts in the same domain

To add a remote Hyper-V host to Hyper-V Manager, select Another computer in the Select Computer dialogue box and type the remote host's hostname, NetBIOS name, or fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

Hyper-V Manager offers more types of remote connections, which are described in the following sections.

Connect to a remote host as a different user

This lets you connect to the Hyper-V host when you're not running on the local computer as a user that's a member of either the Hyper-V Administrators group or the Administrators group on the Hyper-V host. To do this:

  1. In the left pane, right-click Hyper-V Manager.
  2. Click Connect to Server.
  3. Select Connect as another user in the Select Computer dialogue box.
  4. Select Set User.

Connect to a remote host using IP address

To do this:

  1. In the left pane, right-click Hyper-V Manager.
  2. Click Connect to Server.
  3. Type the IP address into the Another Computer text field.

Connect to a remote host outside your domain, or with no domain

To do this:

  1. On the Hyper-V host to be managed, open a Windows PowerShell session as Administrator.

  2. Create the necessary firewall rules for private network zones:

    Enable-PSRemoting
    
  3. To allow remote access on public zones, enable firewall rules for CredSSP and WinRM:

    Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role server
    

    For details, see Enable-PSRemoting and Enable-WSManCredSSP.

Next, configure the computer you'll use to manage the Hyper-V host.

  1. Open a Windows PowerShell session as Administrator.

  2. Run these commands:

    Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value "fqdn-of-hyper-v-host"
    
    Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role client -DelegateComputer "fqdn-of-hyper-v-host"
    
  3. You might also need to configure the following group policy:

    • Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Credentials Delegation > Allow delegating fresh credentials with NTLM-only server authentication
    • Select Enable and add wsman/fqdn-of-hyper-v-host.
  4. Open Hyper-V Manager.

  5. In the left pane, right-click Hyper-V Manager.

  6. Select Connect to Server.

For cmdlet details, see Set-Item and Enable-WSManCredSSP.

Install Hyper-V Manager

To use a UI tool, choose the one appropriate for the operating system on the computer where you'll run Hyper-V Manager:

On Windows Server, open Server Manager > Manage > Add roles and features. Move to the Features page and expand Remote server administration tools > Role administration tools > Hyper-V management tools.

On Windows, Hyper-V Manager is available on any Windows operating system that includes Hyper-V.

  1. On the Windows desktop, select the Start button and begin typing Programs and features.
  2. In search results, select Programs and Features.
  3. In the left pane, select Turn Windows features on or off.
  4. Expand the Hyper-V folder, and select Hyper-V Management Tools.
  5. To install Hyper-V Manager, select Hyper-V Management Tools. If you want to also install the Hyper-V module, select that option.

To use Windows PowerShell, run the following command as Administrator:

add-windowsfeature rsat-hyper-v-tools

Additional References

Install Hyper-V