{"id":4771,"date":"2018-05-24T15:46:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T22:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/?p=4771"},"modified":"2018-05-24T15:46:11","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T22:46:11","slug":"windows-admin-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows-services\/windows-admin-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Manage Your Windows Services with Windows Admin Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"left\" class=\"video-responsive\" style=\"margin-bottom:20px;\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-width:1px;border-style:solid;border-color:rgb(205,205,205)\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WCWxAp27ERk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p>In April 2018, Microsoft released Windows Admin Center (WAC) &mdash; a new web-based tool for managing PCs remotely.<\/p>\n<p>With Windows Admin Center, administrators can perform many routine tasks from the browser, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>List all processes on your PC<\/li>\n<li>Start a new program or terminate one already running<\/li>\n<li>Start, stop or restart any windows service<\/li>\n<li>Browse the event logs<\/li>\n<li>Navigate the registry<\/li>\n<li>Change an account&#8217;s password<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Check out WAC&#8217;s left sidebar to get an idea of what is possible:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-overview-left-sidebar.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"Windows Admin Center: Overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-overview-left-sidebar.png\" title=\"Windows Admin Center: Overview (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"Windows Admin Center: Overview\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>As experts in Windows Services, we were very excited to see what Microsoft is doing in that area! This article highlights the functionality we discovered in the <b>Services<\/b> section.<\/p>\n<h2><b>Working with Windows Services<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>When you click <b>Services<\/b> in the left sidebar, a list of all windows services installed on your computer is displayed on the right. Here we see that there are a whopping 241 services available on our Windows 10 machine!<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-services.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"Windows Admin Center: Services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-services.png\" title=\"Windows Admin Center: Services (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"Windows Admin Center: Services\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>The ability to search comes in handy when you are looking for a specific service. Type in a few characters to match on the name, display name and description fields:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-search.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"WAC: Search Windows Services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-search.png\" title=\"WAC: Search Windows Services (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"WAC: Search Windows Services\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Select a service from the list to reveal its very basic details in the panel below. Only the service&#8217;s name, display name, description and a list of dependent services are shown:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-service-details.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"WAC: Windows Service Details\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-service-details.png\" title=\"WAC: Windows Service Details (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"WAC: Windows Service Details\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>You can start, stop, pause or resume the selected service using the buttons at the top. There is no button to restart the service, but obviously that can be achieved by stopping then starting again.<\/p>\n<p>To show additional details and update the service, click the <b>Settings<\/b> button at the top. Here is what we see for the important Dhcp service:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-dhcp-service-settings-general.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"WAC: DHCP Service: General Settings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-dhcp-service-settings-general.png\" title=\"WAC: DHCP Service: General Settings (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"WAC: DHCP Service: General Settings\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>In the <b>General<\/b> section, you can change the service&#8217;s startup mode to dictate when Windows launches the service. Curiously, <a href=\"\/WindowsServices\/FAQ.html#DelayedStart\">Automatic (Delayed Start)<\/a> is not an option!<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-service-startup-modes.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"WAC: No Automatic (Delayed Start) Startup Mode\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-service-startup-modes.png\" title=\"WAC: No Automatic (Delayed Start) Startup Mode (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"WAC: No Automatic (Delayed Start) Startup Mode\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Microsoft will surely rectify that oversight soon.<\/p>\n<p>Another surprise: You can alter the service&#8217;s command line (path to executable)! In that respect, WAC is more powerful than the venerable <a href=\"\/blog\/windows-services\/essential-tools-windows-services-msc\/\">Services Control Panel application<\/a>, which shows the image path as read-only.<\/p>\n<p>If you click over to the <b>Log On<\/b> section, you can set the account in which the service will run. No surprises there:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-dhcp-service-settings-logon.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"WAC: DHCP Service: Log On Settings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-dhcp-service-settings-logon.png\" title=\"WAC: DHCP Service: Log On Settings (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"WAC: DHCP Service: Log On Settings\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>In the <b>Recovery<\/b> section, specify one of four actions to be taken if the service fails:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-dhcp-service-settings-recovery.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"WAC: DHCP Service: Recovery Settings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/wac-dhcp-service-settings-recovery.png\" title=\"WAC: DHCP Service: Recovery Settings (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"WAC: DHCP Service: Recovery Settings\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Note that not all options available in Services.msc are configurable here. For example, you cannot append a fail count to the end of a command line or configure options when restarting the computer:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/missing-service-recovery-options.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"WAC: Missing Service Recovery Options\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/missing-service-recovery-options.png\" title=\"WAC: Missing Service Recovery Options (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"WAC: Missing Service Recovery Options\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Be cautious when changing your service&#8217;s recovery settings from WAC!<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"installing\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><b>Installing Windows Admin Center: The Fine Print<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>While we were clearly able to get WAC up and running, we encountered a few obstacles along the way. We mention them here for future travelers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>WAC only runs on <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows-server\/manage\/windows-admin-center\/deploy\/install\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Microsoft&#8217;s newest operating systems<\/a>. We had to upgrade our Windows 10 machine to Build 1709 (the lone desktop OS supported).<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-padding\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/settings-about-windows-version-1709.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"Windows 10 Build 1709\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/images\/settings-about-windows-version-1709.png\" title=\"Windows 10 Build 1709 (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"Windows 10 Build 1709\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nWAC has only been tested with the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers on Windows 10.  Firefox fanatics and Safari supporters may be out of luck.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>If you have trouble with authentication, make sure that the <b>WinRM<\/b> service is running. Despite being configured to start automatically, that service wasn&#8217;t running and we had to start it manually on our PC.<\/p>\n<p>Run <b>NET START WinRM<\/b> to do the honors.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nAfter we added our PC to the list and tried to connect, WAC repeatedly told us that our credentials weren&#8217;t valid. We tried several accounts (all with admin access) to no avail.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe problem? Our PC is in a Workgroup instead of a Domain and we&#8217;re not using the builtin admin account. Fortunately we came across <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows-server\/manage\/windows-admin-center\/use\/troubleshooting#workgroup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this page<\/a> which advised us to run this magical command (verbatim) from an elevated prompt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>REG ADD HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System \/v LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy \/t REG_DWORD \/d 1<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Check out the full list of <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows-server\/manage\/windows-admin-center\/use\/troubleshooting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">admin center troubleshooting tips<\/a> if you run into anything else.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin-top:24px;\">Enjoy!<\/p>\n<!-- relpost-thumb-wrapper --><div class=\"relpost-thumb-wrapper\"><!-- filter-class --><div class=\"relpost-thumb-container\"><style>.relpost-block-single-image, .relpost-post-image { margin-bottom: 10px; }<\/style><h3>You may also like...<\/h3><div style=\"clear: both\"><\/div><div style=\"clear: both\"><\/div><!-- relpost-block-container --><div class=\"relpost-block-container relpost-block-column-layout\" style=\"--relposth-columns: 3;--relposth-columns_t: 2; --relposth-columns_m: 2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows-services\/power\/\"class=\"relpost-block-single\" ><div class=\"relpost-custom-block-single\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"relpost-block-single-image\" alt=\"Essential Windows Services: Power\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/power-150x150.png\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\"><\/img><div class=\"relpost-block-single-text\"  style=\"height: 75px;font-family: Arial;  font-size: 12px;  color: #333333;\"><h2 class=\"relpost_card_title\">Essential Windows Services: Power<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/alwaysup\/trouble-running-batch-file\/\"class=\"relpost-block-single\" ><div class=\"relpost-custom-block-single\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"relpost-block-single-image\" alt=\"Q&amp;A: Why can&#039;t AlwaysUp run my Batch File?\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/gear-window-150x150-1.png\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\"><\/img><div class=\"relpost-block-single-text\"  style=\"height: 75px;font-family: Arial;  font-size: 12px;  color: #333333;\"><h2 class=\"relpost_card_title\">Q&amp;A: Why can&#039;t AlwaysUp run my Batch File?<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows-services\/dismiss-popups-dialog-boxes\/\"class=\"relpost-block-single\" ><div class=\"relpost-custom-block-single\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"relpost-block-single-image\" alt=\"How to Automatically Dismiss Popups from a Windows Service\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/dismiss-popups-150x150.png\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\"><\/img><div class=\"relpost-block-single-text\"  style=\"height: 75px;font-family: Arial;  font-size: 12px;  color: #333333;\"><h2 class=\"relpost_card_title\">How to Automatically Dismiss Popups from a Windows Service<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div><!-- close relpost-block-container --><div style=\"clear: both\"><\/div><\/div><!-- close filter class --><\/div><!-- close relpost-thumb-wrapper -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In April 2018, Microsoft released Windows Admin Center (WAC) &mdash; a new web-based tool for managing PCs remotely. With Windows Admin Center, administrators can perform many routine tasks from the browser, including: List all processes on your PC Start a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows-services\/windows-admin-center\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[151,184,188,196],"class_list":["post-4771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-windows-services","tag-services-msc","tag-windows-10","tag-windows-admin-center","tag-windows-services-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}