How to manage Hyper-V hosts and virtual machines remotely

• Hyper-V on Windows 10 or 11 (Pro, Enterprise or Education): install the free RemoteAccessApp Agent on the PC. You get its desktop through any router, a remote PowerShell or Command Prompt, Windows tools, and commands on several PCs at once.
• Hyper-V on Windows Server: the RemoteAccessApp apps support Windows 10 and 11, so reach the server as a saved host instead: RDP for its desktop, and SSH with Windows' OpenSSH Server for PowerShell, scripts and a live dashboard.
• The Windows VMs on either: saved as RDP hosts, once Remote Desktop is on inside each VM. Linux VMs: SSH hosts.

1. 1

   Step 1: Install the Console on your own PC

   Download RemoteAccessApp for Windows 10 or 11, choose the Console and sign in with a free account.

2. 2

   Step 2: Windows 10 or 11 host: add the Agent

   On the Hyper-V PC, run the same installer, choose the Agent and sign in to the same account, so the PC appears on your Devices page. To reach it when nobody is there, turn on unattended access at the PC.

3. 3

   Step 3: Windows Server host: turn on OpenSSH Server and Remote Desktop

   On the server, add the OpenSSH Server optional feature and start its service, and turn on Remote Desktop. In an administrator PowerShell on the server:

   Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0
   Start-Service sshd
   Set-Service sshd -StartupType Automatic

4. 4

   Step 4: Save the server and its VMs as hosts

   On the Connections page, add the server as an SSH host and an RDP host, and each Windows VM as an RDP host. Put them in a group per host, such as Hyper-V 1, and tag them if you like.

5. 5

   Step 5: Check the server's key, then connect

   The first time you connect over SSH, compare the key fingerprint with the server's own before you trust it. See server keys. Use an SSH key instead of a password where you can; the SSH keys help explains how.

On a Windows 10 or 11 host, right-click it on the Devices page and choose Open command prompt, or click Terminal in a session's toolbar and pick PowerShell. On Windows Server, open its SSH host. Then the Hyper-V module does the work:

Get-VM
Start-VM -Name "web-01"
Stop-VM -Name "web-01"
Checkpoint-VM -Name "web-01" -SnapshotName "before-update"
Get-VMSwitch

Rights

Hyper-V's cmdlets need an administrator, or a member of the Hyper-V Administrators group. On a Windows 10 or 11 host, commands run with the rights RemoteAccessApp has there, which is normally the signed-in user's, and Windows keeps remote tools away from its administrator (UAC) prompts: anything that asks for one has to be approved by someone at the PC. Adding your user to Hyper-V Administrators avoids that for VM work.

Windows Server's SSH shell

Windows' OpenSSH Server starts Command Prompt unless you've made PowerShell its default shell. From Command Prompt, run a PowerShell command like this:

powershell -NoProfile -Command "Get-VM | Select-Object Name, State, Uptime"

For a Windows 10 or 11 host, Windows tools show its processes, services, sign-in sessions and Event Log. The Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service (vmms) is the one to check when VMs won't start, and you can restart a service there while remote control is allowed on that PC.

For a Windows Server host, click Dashboard on its SSH terminal tab for live CPU, memory, disk and network graphs and the busiest processes. On Windows it reads them with PowerShell over SSH every 5 seconds or more, installs nothing, and stops when the tab is off screen.

• Windows 10 and 11 hosts, free: select them on the Devices page, right-click and choose Run a command, and get each PC's output and exit code side by side.
• Windows 10 and 11 hosts, with Pro: Management runs a saved PowerShell script on many PCs at once or on a schedule, showing the exact command first. A script that needs administrator rights needs the Agent to run as administrator on that PC.
• Windows Server hosts, free: save the script in the SSH terminal's Scripts & History panel and use Run on hosts… to run it on every server you tick, with each one's output and result.

For example, a morning check of which VMs are running on each host:

powershell -NoProfile -Command "Get-VM | Where-Object State -eq Running | Select-Object Name, Uptime"

More in running a script on many PCs.

Hyper-V hosts often sit next to Linux hypervisors. The same Connections list holds them all, and split view puts a Hyper-V server's RDP tab next to a Proxmox VE dashboard. See managing Proxmox, VMware and KVM hosts from one app for the rest of the setup.