Tore Lervik

Hyper-V Monitor Gadget

Hyper-V Monitor Gadget

I've created a sidebar gadget to see and control Virtual Machines from your workstation.. The gadget can list multiple servers at once and also support vmconnect when double clicking on a VM.

The gadget uses WMI to connect to the server so the user might need to follow John Howard's guide remote WMI access on both the client and the Hyper-V server.

Version 5.2.5 is out!

The project has been moved to CodePlex to allow for more people to participate. Send me your CodePlex username if you want to join the project on CodePlex.

The latest version of my gadget has been tested and is now ready to be released! After a rewrite of the gadget, it is now better, faster and more awesome than ever before! :)
The gadget is now packed with more features than ever while still keeping the UI simple, alot of neat little features.

Some of the new features

  • VM CPU graph
  • Wake on Lan support
  • VM RDP (If the host is running 2008 R2)
  • Multilanguage support.


5.2 (07.03.2010)

  • Optimized performance releated to VM-RDP addresses.
  • Added ability to only display a number of VM at the time. (Good for people having more VM than fits on the screen)
  • If a VM not in the screen is off the host's name will be red, if it's paused or starting it will be orange.
  • Added ability to minimize a server in the monitor view. Holding mouse cursor over the Host will display information about the VM's
  • Added option to choose what type of RDP setting to the host on a pr. host basis.
  • Added VM information when holding the mouse cursor over a VM (The gadget needs focus for this to work..)
  • Added Orange background to a VM that is running with the Health-status not beeing OK. (Happens when a VM is booting up by bluescreen)
  • Added Pause button to the VM controls.
  • Wibout Bootsma is now part of the gadget development. :)

Download

Hyper-V Monitor.gadget @ CodePlex 

Gadget

  • Host title 
    Double click on the host title to launch a new Remote Desktop connection to the host.
  • Host Control 
    Hover over the host title to get a set of buttons for the host if you have Wake on Lan enabled. (Shut Down or Start)
  • Host title RAM amount 
    Displays the RAM amount the host has left.
  • VM title 
    • If the VM supports RDP and you got vmconnect installed: Double click to launch VMConnect* to the VM and a RDP icon appears when you hold the cursor over the VM.
    • If the VM supports RDP: Double click to launch RDP to the VM.
    • If you got vmconnect installed: Double click to launch VMConnect* to the VM.
  • VM Status 
    Displaying the status of the VM in both color and text.
    If the VM is running a cpu graph will be displayed.
  • VM Control 
    Hover over the status to get a set of buttons for the current VM. (Start, Turn Off, Shut Down and Save)
  • Large Size (Undocked) 
    You can make the gadget bigger by using the Large Size (Windows 7) or Undock it from the sidebar (Vista).


* Hyper-V Manager and VMConnect are included in Hyper-V Tools that comes with Microsoft RSAT.

Settings

  • Servers (Server manager) 
    This is the list of servers that the gadget will try to connect to.
    Each server can have custom credentials or just blank user\password for default credentials.
    • Wake on lan 
      Wake on Lan is now supported through the freeware wolcom.dll that can be downloaded from http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-com.aspx
    • Remote desktop 
      • Terminal means Remote Desktop session will be a terminal session
      • Console means Remote Desktop session will be a console (admin) session
      • Both means an additional RDP Icon will show for the Console session.
      • None means Remote Desktop is not allowed/supported by the server.
  • Refresh time (Seconds) 
    How often the gadget should refresh the server information.
  • Virtual Machines 
    Define the maximum number of VM’s per server visible in the gadget. When more VM’s are available, scroll buttons will be displayed.
  • Click type 
    How the gadget takes mouse input. (Double or single click)
  • Server Control 
    Enable\disable the Control buttons.
  • Language 
    Select what language you want the gadget to use.
    Currently supported languages are:
    • Deutsch by Bjoern Buerstinghaus
    • English by Tore Lervik
    • Italian by Adriano Arrigo
    • Nederlands by Wibout Bootsma
    • Norsk by Tore Lervik
    • Polish by Bartlomiej Malecki
    • Portuguese by Mauro Ribeiro
    • Svenska by Camilla Bergström
    • French by Thibaut Blanchin
    • Chinese by Jim Liu

Version history

5.2.5 (12.03.2011)

  • Moved the project to CodePlex
  • Version details available on CodePlex from now on

5.2.4 (12.03.2010) - Hotfix

  • Fixed problem with "\" in usernames and passwords for remote control and RDP


5.2.3 (11.03.2010) - Hotfix

  • Fixed some errors with Polish language
  • Fixed a bug with Hyper-V servers upgraded from RC to RTM


5.2.2 (08.03.2010) - Hotfix

  • Added Polish and Italian language


5.2 (07.03.2010)

  • Optimized performance releated to VM-RDP addresses
  • Added ability to only display a number of VM at the time. (Good for people having more VM than fits on the screen)
  • If a VM not in the screen is off the host's name will be red, if it's paused or starting it will be orange
  • Added ability to minimize a server in the monitor view
  • Added option to choose what type of RDP setting to the host on a pr. host basis
  • Added VM information when holding the mouse cursor over a VM (The gadget needs focus for this to work..)
  • Added Orange background to a VM that is running with the Health-status not beeing OK (Happens when a VM is booting up by bluescreen)
  • Added Pause button to the VM controls
  • Wibout Bootsma is now part of the gadget development


5.0 (28.11.2009)

  • Redesigned the layout of the gadget
  • Rewritten most of the vbs and js code
  • Optimized the WMI queries
  • The host is now pinged before it tries to connect to avoid the long wmi timeouts
  • Added multilanguage support
  • Added Wake on Lan support (Thanks to Wibout Bootsma)
  • Added RDP support (Thanks to Wibout Bootsma)
  • Added CPU graph to the VM
  • Added the ability to turn off the server from the gadget
  • Fixed the serverlist so that special characters like / are allowed in the password
  • Added encryption (scrambling) to the serverlist so that passwords aren't easly available


4.1.1 (10.02.2009) - Hotfix

  • Fixed so letters like pgq are displayed properly in the undocked mode


4.1 (20.01.2009)

  • Re-added the ability to turn VM Control On or Off


4.0 (19.01.2009)

  • Added new server manager for easier management
  • Added a Large size (undocked) theme with larger font
  • Clicking on a host now starts Remote Desktop to the host
  • Clicking on the Hyper-V Monitor title starts the Hyper-V Manager
  • Fixed a bug with custom credentials
  • Fixed a bug with RAM amount


3.5.1 (16.01.2009) - Hotfix

  • Fixed a problem with the RAM amount using two lines


3.5 (03.12.2008)

  • Added support for custom credentials per server


3.4 (27.11.2008)

  • Added a way to display how much free RAM each host has left


3.3 (31.07.2008)

  • Added a Height Offset value to the settings


3.2 (01.07.2008)

  • Fixed a bug with VM Control not using the custom credentials


3.1 (01.07.2008)

  • Added support for custom credentials


3.0 (30.06.2008)

  • Hyper-V Manager installation is now detected automaticly
  • You can now open Hyper-V Manager by clicking on the server name
  • You can now select either Single or Double Click action for links and buttons
  • Added a new feature (WM Control) that allows you to control the VM's directly in the gadget (Turn Off, Shut Down, Save and Start)
  • Added highlight text to the VM Control buttons (The gadget need to be focused to show them)
  • Fixed a bug if you happened to have two VM's with the same name on the same server
  • Fixed javascript errors


2.3 (24.06.2008)

  • VM's are now sorted alphabetically


2.2 (21.06.2008)

  • Minor changes in the settings dialog


2.1 (21.06.2008)

  • First public version

Recent Comments

Gary Halverson

Very cool gadget! Super helpful!

Wayne Duguay

We solved the "Offline" problem by enabling inbound ICMP in the Hyper-V host firewall. Command: netsh firewall set icmpsetting 8. Not gone testing further byt the gadget probably uses ICMP ping packet to monitor "online/offline" status.

Erik

Having same problem as Brad. Can only see memory usage number.. I'd like to see a graph.
Gave the server administrator credentials so it should work. Help?

Brad

I am only able to see the memory usage in the gadget. Is there any way to enable cpu monitoring and others as well? Sounds like there is but that information is not showing up. Thanks

David

Love the gadget. Is there a limitation of the number of hosts servers? I have 30 hosts and I am only able to add 21. Has anyone else seen this behavior?
Thanks again!
David

Mat

Mouse-hovering over a VM shows a list with information. If VM is Windows, "Operating system:" is shown too. How do I make OS-info available for Linux VMs?

Thanks
By the way: great work!

Christian

Hi

Great job thanks a lot for a great app. It would be great if you also could see the amount of diskspace left :-)

Many greetings from Denmark

Robert vabo

Very nice work Tore.
A feature that could be nice is if you can split the gadget in two or more. We have 9 Hyper-V hosts containing about 100 VMs so it is impossible to have control over them all at once

Tim

The gadget looks great, but one of our two virtual servers appears as Offline and the graph for one of the VMs shows to be using nearly full CPU%, when in actual fact it's only 7% according to Hyper-V Manager

Eric

The memory usage does not show dynamic memory, but only minimal memory set for the VM. Too bad...

Carsten Rachfahl

Hi Paul,

I have written a Powershell Script that does exactly what you want. Have a look here: http://www.hyper-v-server.de/tools/hyper-v-sicherung-mittels-powershell-script/. It`s in German but you can try Google translater.

Carsten Rachfahl
MVP Virtual Machine

Paul Borella

Tore, you used to have scripts for shutting down, backing up and restarting VM's. Do you still have these scripts on your site? The following blogs links to your site:
http://www.bunkerhollow.com/blogs/matt/archive/2008/09/24/hyper-v-vm-backup-script-batch-file.aspx

I ask because I am looking for scripts to do these tasks and log each step.

Thanks

David Overton

I seem to be suffering the "Offline" status message. Hyper-V Manager works fine. My client is a Windows 7 x64 box and the server is Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 (latest updates). Both my client and server are workgroup connected.

Varun

Any possibilities of adding the ability to set the ISO location as well? Would savea lot of time and effort

Adam

Any chance of getting an update to support Dynamic Memory in Server 2008 R2 SP1?

Didier

I am able to use version 4.1 without problems (I downloaded this version a long time ago).
The latest version doesn't work as the host is shown in red and as not available. I tried every possible settings and configuration for hours ... If I revert back to 4.1 it works again within seconds.
I'm running it on a w7x64sp1.
Thanks anyway.
Kind regads
didier

SteveL

As others have said, great gadget, but major memory leak, on W7 x64 SP1, Sidebar.exe had consumed almost 1GB RAM in 24 hours after installing Gadget. Would love an updated version to resolve this...

RZ

Is there a way to save the serverlist and settings an import it on an other computer?

Ashley

Awesome gadget. Have been using it for over a year without fail. Love being able to holistically see all VMs and see their CPU usage. Would be awesome if it worked through the VMM services so that the delegated administration permissions part of VMM could be used.

Ian

I love this gadget, thanks Tore!!

However, like JohnS said, I also experience a horrible memory leak. I have 8GB RAM on a Win7 x64 SP1 desktop and this gadget over several weeks of uptime will gradually consume it all! Perhaps because I run a number of instances of the Hyper-V gadget to monitor different clusters?