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I've logged into a new Windows 2025 Server,

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that's going to be a file server later on,

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and I'm going to install something called Windows Admin Center.

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Windows Admin Center allows us to remotely manage any computer,

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any server that's a member of the domain or in which you have the

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credentials. That's a Windows device.

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It also allows you to connect to Azure Resources as well as any failover

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clusters you might have.

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I've done a search for Windows Admin Center download,

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and I just want to make sure that you're connected to the microsoft.com site

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and not connected to any third party.

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And I'm going to choose to download Windows Admin Center.

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Here, you can see it's downloading and when it's done,

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go ahead and open and install it.

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You don't want to install this on any server or computer that's running a web

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server, and that's because it's going to use those same ports,

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so it might cause some conflicts.

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Now it's running the installation wizard.

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I'll choose to accept the terms and click Next.

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You can choose what diagnostic data you'd like to share.

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Always a good idea to get updates prior to installation.

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Here, I'll choose the defaults and click Next. I'm going to be using Port 443,

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and as I mentioned earlier, if you have a web server,

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then that could cause a conflict. And I'll choose install.

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It's going to create a self-signed certificate,

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which is going to cause an error with the web browser, but that's okay.

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You should be able to get around it by choosing to go ahead and take the risk

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and click Okay,

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and then it will allow you to get onto the site anyway. You could purchase a

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public certificate or you could trust this through group policy once it's a

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member of an Active Directory domain to get around those errors.

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Installation is complete and I can just click the link or go to the start menu

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to launch the website.

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I did get the message that you see at the top left that this is not a secure

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site, but I do trust it since I created it.

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Now I'll put in the administrator username and

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password. And now it's launching

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Windows Admin Center for the first time. By default,

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it's going to add in the local computer that I'm on,

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and then I can go ahead and add other computers if I'd like to as well.

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I'll start out by clicking on the computer in which it's installed.

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Take a look at the right-hand side.

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You can see it's updating extensions. Extensions are additional ways that we can

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manage servers that are not going to be included by default,

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and that's because they end up using a lot more resources.

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So you can add in extensions as needed, which I'll show you shortly.

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On the left hand side here,

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you can see a lot of different Azure types of features,

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such as the ability to add in Azure backup if you'd like to back up the server

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to the cloud, as well as other things like Kubernetes services,

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file syncs, et cetera.

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You can click on Events to get the event viewer just like you could if you

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wanted to go to tools, event viewer, and server manager on that server.

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But from here,

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I can connect to any event viewer on any computer once I add those computers

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into the homepage. If I have any files or folders shared,

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you can see that information here,

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and I don't have any file shares set up yet.

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Here is the firewall,

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and this would be the same Windows Defender firewall

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that you would use on the server,

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although it does look a lot different in the web version.

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I'll click on Incoming Rules. You have incoming and outgoing,

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and here's the list of allowed incoming rules along with their ports.

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And there's many other types of features we can connect to,

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such as packet monitoring, performance monitor, et cetera.

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I'm going to go on the upper right-hand corner where the gear is,

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and I'm going to click on that and choose on the left-hand side, extensions.

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These are those things that had downloaded after I first logged in,

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and here you can see a lot of different extensions that I could add in that are

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not installed by default.

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Some are for third party products, in case you have those,

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such as Fujitsu as well as HPE.

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Just as an example, I'll click on DNS

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and you can see it's going to add the ability to manage DNS if I have it

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installed on the server.

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And I'll just choose the install option that you see here,

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and it's going to go ahead and install the ability to manage DNS if it's

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installed on the server.

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I'll go back to where it says Windows Admin Center, select my server,

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and after a refresh, here, you can see the DNS option.

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I'm going to go back to the home screen and I'm going

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to add in one of my other servers.

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So I'll click on Add and take a look at the different things we can add.

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We can add local servers in the upper left-hand corner,

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Windows PC such as Windows 10 and 11.

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We can add in any server clusters we might have,

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which is when you allow multiple different servers to become server nodes

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that share applications and make them highly available to users.

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And then there's the option to add in Azure virtual machines. I'm going to click

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on Add for servers,

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and I'm putting in the IP address rather than the name,

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and I'll choose the administrator and password and click on Add with

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credentials. It resolved the IP address to the name,

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so it's validating the information.

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I'll click the checkbox and click Add.

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And there's my other server, so I'll click to select that other server,

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and now you can see I can manage that other server just as I could the local

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one. Windows Admin Center is the tool of the future for managing local and

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cloud Windows resources in your organization.