Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar

Categories: Hyper-V, Sidebar Gadget Posted by Tore Lervik on 3/7/2010 11:30 PM | Comments (47)

I've created a sidebar gadget so I can see what the Hyper-V server is doing from my workstation.
The gadget can list multiple servers at once and also support vmconnect when double clicking on a VM.
PS: 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 is out!

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 are:

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. :)

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
1. 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.
2. If the VM supports RDP: Double click to launch RDP to the VM.
3. 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
  1. Terminal means Remote Desktop session will be a terminal session
  2. Console means Remote Desktop session will be a console (admin) session
  3. Both means an additional RDP Icon will show for the Console session.
  4. 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 Bartłomiej Małecki
- Portuguese by Mauro Ribeiro
- Svenska by Camilla Bergström
- French by Thibaut Blanchin
- Chinese by Jim Liu
Want to translate the gadget to your language? Send me an email! :)
PS: Some updated language are provided by google translate! If you find any spelling errors with your language, send me and email with the updated text. :)

Download

Hyper-V Monitor.gadget (50 kb)

Version history

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

Feel free to spread the gadget around the world, but link to this site and not directly to the gadget :-)<-->

Great gadget, cheers for that! Only thing i miss is the option for creating a snapshot, that would be absolute killer!

Great work!
I use it to monitor and control VMs on my development lab (installed on a local Hyper-V machine with "Desktop Experience" enabled

Adding the RDP connection to version 5 is a great feature; however, it lacks the "/admin" option to connect to console session.
This can be done by editing the gadget.js file (that's what I did), but adding a checkbox to the options window will make some SysAdmins very happy

It's a great tool. I used this gadget to monitor a number of virtual servers in my company.
Thanks for making my life much easier!

What is the user to do when there are more VM machines than can be shown in the gadget display? (i've got around 150 VMs with 5 servers) Is there anyway to collapse a Server's machines display? Scroll?

Robert, maybe it helps...
You can start multiple instances of the Hyper-V Monitor where in each instance you define one of your servers.
Just put them next to each other. (Undocked when your PC runs Vista)

Wilbout,

That helps some. But please consider some "trick" to handling the display when their are more VMs that the display allows.

Will there ever be a "non gadget" version? Just a "regular" windows application that you would perhaps allow multiple columns?

Regardless - the community does appreciate this! Thanks.

Hi Robert,

The solution is to use more than one instance of the gadget. The gadget is just JavaScript and html, so there are a lot of stuff I would like to do but can't.

Excellent as always! Many thanks for this valuable tool.

Great gadget... I use it daily at work. I have just one wish, and that´s a scrollable function.

Great gadget. Very useful for us.
We use it every day.
Thanks for your job.

Merci beaucoup

Hi Tore,

This looks like it would be a really cool tool, but I can't seem to get it to work. My computer is in a domain and the HV server is in a workgroup. I used the HVRemote script to check the configuration and I have been able to use other tools to manage the HV server. The HV Monitor gadget just sits there and says my HV server is offline.

Thanks for your help!

Hi @ all,

thx for the tool, but which UDP-port do I have to enter in the settings menu (for Wake ON Lan)?!

Thanks for your aswers & support!

Greetings

TheMerger

Normally the Wake on LAN (magic packet) is sent to UDP port 0, 7 or 9 (I use UDP port 9), but other free UDP ports may be used as well. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN)

Make sure that your router(s) and firewall(s) allow traffic on the UDP port that you are using. (Ofcourse your server must support Wake On LAN.)

Regards,

Wibout

I am trying to install this gadget on windows 7 x64 and I am getting an Unspecified Error. Any thoughts?

I have a suggestion - can you have an option to show an alias name for a server? I have two servers that have real long names (15 characters) and since they are both named the same with the exception of the last couple of characters - and it is "chopped off" in the gadget view, I cannot tell which is which. If I could put in an alias name like "Sup. Testing" (for example) - that would be cool. I love the application!

If you do implement this, a balloon hover could show the real server name I suppose.

Just upgraded to the newest version when I upgraded workstations (running Win7 Pro x64). I have four Hyper-V servers, two domain members and two standalone servers. One of the two standalone servers shows "Object not a collection". All four servers are configured and working using an older version of the gadget on my Vista x86 machine.

Tore --

We have been using your gadget for many versions and love it. The latest version however we have a serious issue with. We manage many Hyper-V VMs which don't allow RDP connections for security and now with the latest version of your gadget it appears not to connect to the console any more but always attempts an RDP connection. How do we get it to connect to the Hyper-v console again on double click? Thanks for this great tool. Joe

@Joseph

There is already a newer version of the gadget that solves your issue.
I hope that Tore will release this new version as soon as he is ready with testing.

New functionality:
1) Ability to define -per server- the type of connection (Console, Terminal) to be used for RDP.
2) Functionality to scroll through the VM's of a server where the maximum number of VM's shown per server can be configured. See comments from Robert (1st of December 2009) and Toby (2nd of december).
3) Functionality to collapse/expand the VM's of a server. See comment from Robert (1st of December 2009).

Wibout --

We downloaded and installed the latest version as of this time and still have the same problem. We cannot connect to the console of any of our VMs which have RDP disabled.

Joe

Joseph --

Correct, Tore has not yet released the new version (5.1) yet.
I have made the changes to the gadget -mentioned in my previous post- in december 2009 and I have send the amended gadget to Tore.

Unfortunately I haven't heard from him lately, but I am sure that he will release the new version as soon as he is ready testing.

Wibout

Hi Joseph,

Do you have RSAT installed? As stated in the VM title:
   1. 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.
   2. If the VM supports RDP: Double click to launch RDP to the VM.
   3. If you got vmconnect installed: Double click to launch VMConnect* to the VM

I have been using 4.1 and love it, great tool thanks.
I recently upgraded my laptop from Vista 32bit to Win7 64bit.
The 4.1 version worked fine but 5.0 shows all hosts as offline.
Did I miss something?

Hey George,

From version 5.0 the gadget requires that it can ping the server. It most likely shows as offline since the server blocks ping.

Greetings! Has spent a lot of time. I am completely connected and operate by a server through RSAT.
Has established 5 version gadget. At me value RAM is displayed, but instead of the schedule of loading CPU and is more low displayed invalid namespace. Deenergizing works, inclusion is not present. Library wolcom.dll has registered on the client and on all servers VM. As I can be helped. Thank you very much.

Thanks Tore that was the problem.
To save other non-command line junkies the research here is the steps to allow ping.
At the command line
-type: netsh then enter
-type: advfirewall then enter
-type: firewall then enter
-type: add rule name="ICMP Allow incoming V4 echo request" protocol=icmpv4:8,any dir=in action=allow

Thank you very much. All has earned!

I have been using 4.1 until this week, I updated to 5.0. I love the utility.....Great JOB. However, since upgrading to 5.0 each of my 4 HyperV servers vanish from the gadget and usually say "object not a collection" then come back a minute or two later. Any ideas?

Hi,
Don’t stop blogging! It’s nice to read a sane commentary for once

Hi
I am having the 'object not a collection' issue with the latest one.
3 out of my 4 hosts work fine without any problem.
one of them does not, also my manager can get all these working on his machine...why not on mine?

Regards
Rucky

Hi,
What a great tool. But I also am having the trouble of 'object not a collection' consistantly on one and intermittently on another. And on most servers not at all.

Hope to hear about a solution.

Dave

The "object not part of a collection" is becoming a real issue. I it is happening more and more. I hope a solution is posted soon, before I am not part of the collection

. I love the tool otherwise, great work!

--KevinB

I am running version 5.1 of the gadget since december 2009 and i don't have any problems with it.
This version is equal to version 5.0 with some added functionality as shown in a post from me on the 13th of January.
I know that Tore is quite busy lately but i would love to see if you face the same problems with this newer version.
Please send me an email (wibout.bootsma@planet.nl) and i will mail you this newer version.

Regards,

Wibout

Thanks, this is a great tool. I was wondering if anyone has tried to get it working with a Failover Cluster? I have 4 servers in a cluster and I can see each one separately (as well as which VMs they own) but was wondering if anyone has got it to work with the cluster address?

--dweez

George P recommended the following:

-type: netsh then enter
-type: advfirewall then enter
-type: firewall then enter
-type: add rule name="ICMP Allow incoming V4 echo request" protocol=icmpv4:8,any dir=in action=allow

Is that to be entered inside each VM?

Thanks

--Wibout
Thanks so much. My issues are now resolved and everything is working great. 5.1 is a even greater improvement that 5.0 was. Good work you guys.

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this,would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.

--Doug
No, the commands from Doug set the firewall to accept ping requests.
Since version 5.0 ping is used only to detect if a server is up and running.
The commands are only needed on the server, not on any of the VM's.

We honestly got a kick out of your point of view. It seems that you have placed a lot of effort into your web post and we need more of these on the web these days. I don't really have much to say in reply, I only this minute wanted to sign up to reply great work.

Hi Tore,

I'm trying to use the gadget. But the monitor syas "offline". Everything is entered correct (can connect via vmconnect.exe). Windows 7 with HyperV console installed (64 Bite German version). Any ideas?

Best greetings

Mario

--Mario
Most probably you can not ping your server.
See posts from George and Tore on the 21st of January.
The solve this, make sure that your firewall(s) allow ping. (See post from George on the 23rd of January.)

Some of you might have noticed that the time needed to refresh the gadget increased quite a bit in version 5.0. Especially those who have many VM's to be monitored might experience disturbing latency. (The gadget seems non-responsive in this time.)
I found the cause of this problem and I experience now an improvement of over 90% in the reponsetime for refreshing the gadget.
As soon as I have finished my tests I will send the gadget to Tore so that he can perform a final test and publish it.

Is there a way to make this work with the local server? I know it sounds silly since I'm already on the server to begin with - but the only ones I can get it to show are remote computers. If I put in localhost or the name/IP of the machine I am on, it fails to connect. I know I can just open up the hyper-v manager and get to the machine that way - but having quick access on my desktop is awesome, plus with the CPU readout with version 5 ( WAY AWESOME BTW ), it'd be even more handy.

--Tank

In order to monitor the local server, leave the username and password empty.
You should be able to use either localhost or the name/IP of the server.

WOW - I tried so many combinations but never something so simple!

Where/how can I donate money to this fantastic sidebar gadget? I'm only on a network administrators' salary at a public middle school... but this sidebar gadget has changed my life ;) The CPU read out is awesome!

hehe thanks! =)
The gadget is free to use ;)

Well, I had 5.0 installed - I typed in localhost and omitted any username/password and it showed all of my VMs on the local machine... however, I upgraded to 5.2 - and had to re-enter my server info, and now "localhost" only shows my free memory - it doesn't show me the servers that are running... any ideas?

The memory shown is also updating (I can move a VM to another node and the memory frees up, etc)... I tried clicking the minimize/maximize (dash and square) that show up when you mouse over the free memory, but ... I'm stumped.

Pointers?

Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar

Version 5.2 is out!

Gadget

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