Windows Admin Center (WAC) with vMode for virtualization admins

The Windows Admin Center team released the public preview of Virtualization Mode (internally referred to as vMode) in November 2025. This is the first native, Microsoft-supported, web-based fabric management console dedicated to Hyper-V, Failover Clustering, Storage Spaces Direct, and limited SDN features — without requiring System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).

I think it is good news for Microsoft Hyper-V users that Microsoft has released (in preview for Insiders) a new version of Windows Admin Center (WAC). The tool remains free of charge (if you’re running Windows Server Standard or Datacenter) and is packed with features such as P2V, V2V and VM and host management. Think of it as vCenter server for Hyper-V (perhaps a little too bold as a statement, but nevertheless). From my quick tests it’s very fast and responsive.

The tool is for now available as public preview for Windows insiders, and it’s destined to manage your Hyper-V installations. You can get a single pane of glass for Hyper-V hosts, clusters, VMs, storage, networking…. All in one place.

WAC sign-in screen

Many SMBs and enterprises are finally re-thinking their virtualization platform as VMware price increases are for some, unbearable. One of the ways “out of VMware” is the fact, for those mostly running Windows VMs within their organization, to move to Hyper-V as Hyper-V is already included within the Microsoft licensing they are already paying. To me, migration to Hyper-V makes sense, considering this particular scenario. Otherwise Proxmox or XCP-NG stays on the top of alternatives, not tightened to a software vendor.

Architecture and Deployment

• Management node: Windows Server 2022 or 2025 (physical or VM).
• Database: Built-in PostgreSQL instance managed by the installer (stateful, unlike classic WAC).
• Agent: Lightweight, always-on agent installed on every managed Hyper-V host (replaces WinRM-based stateless calls used by standard WAC). In fact, currently WAC that uses the WinRM is quite slow. Installing a light-weight agents on each host speeds up the responsiveness of the solution.
• Communication: TLS 1.3 encrypted, port 6516 by default.
• Supported targets: Windows Server 2019, 2022, 2025 (Hyper-V role enabled) and Azure Stack HCI 22H2/23H2/24H2 clusters.

Official scale targets in preview:

• 1,000 hosts
• 25,000 virtual machines per single vMode instance
  (No linked-mode/high-availability for the gateway yet — planned for GA.)

Windows Admin Center vMode – The Installation

The setup is pretty easy. Download it here: https://aka.ms/WACDownloadvMode

You’ll need to install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package. You’ll be prompted from the installer or you can also download the package via command line:

winget install Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.x64 –Silent

After that, you can choose between two different setups:

1. Express setup – automatically determines network access and port selection
2. Custom setup – allows configuring network access, port numbers, TLS certificate type, fully qualified domain name, trusted hosts mode, and WinRM over HTTPS.

Then the next step is to generate a self-signed certificate (attention, because it expires in 60 days!).

You’ll need to create a PostgreSQL password during the installation.

Pick a password for PostgreSQL DB

Nice and quick installation. You’re up and running in less than 2 minutes.

Start the WAC by clicking the Finish button

This is it. Quick and easy.

Personalization with Dark mode is available in WAC

The UI is really fast and I like it.

The latest version is 2.6 during the writing

Host and Cluster Management

After onboarding, the Fabric view becomes the primary landing page:

• Aggregated health of all clusters and standalone hosts
• Real-time CPU, memory, storage pool usage
• Event log aggregation with filtering
• Resource groups (logical containers, non-hierarchical) for scoped operations

Key capabilities:

• Bulk host actions (restart, update via Cluster-Aware Updating integration, live migration of all VMs)
• Network ATC v2 integration (Server 2025 only) – deploy switch teaming, RDMA, QoS, and VLAN intents in one click across hundreds of nodes
• GPU partitioning (GPU-P) assignment at host level, then per-VM
• Storage Spaces Direct health and tiering visibility (no tier management yet)
• Cluster quorum and CSV status at a glance

VM Management:

Everyday operations (all bulk-capable)

• Power actions
• Live migration (with automatic destination selection)
• Quick migration, storage migration
• Checkpoint creation/deletion
• Dynamic Memory and processor compatibility settings
• ISO mounting from shared libraries
• Hyper-V Replica configuration and failover orchestration

Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) and Virtual-to-Virtual (V2V) conversion

P2V (Physical → Hyper-V) – The built-in Convert Physical Machine wizard uses a small downloadable agent (similar to Disk2vhd + driver injection):

• Supports Windows Server 2008 R2 → 2025 and most modern Linux distros
• Offline or online capture
• Automatic driver injection for Hyper-V Integration Services
• Re-IP and domain join options during conversion

V2V (VMware → Hyper-V) – The real highlight

The VM Conversion Service (separate preview extension) allows direct migration from vSphere without intermediate export:

Supported sources:

• vCenter 6.7, 7.x, 8.x
• Standalone ESXi hosts

Process:

1. Register vCenter/ESXi as a conversion source (credentials stored encrypted).
2. Browse VMware inventory inside vMode.
3. Select one or multiple VMs → Convert.
4. Choose target cluster/host, storage location, virtual network mapping.
5. Conversion runs on the vMode gateway (OVF → VHDX, VMware tools removal, Integration Services injection).
6. Optional scheduled delta sync for cutover.
7. Real-world test (single 64 GB Windows Server 2022 VM, 4 vCPU):
8. Initial conversion: 18 minutes
9. Delta sync + final cutover: 4 minutes
10. Bulk limit in preview: 20 concurrent conversions.

Final Words

Windows Admin Center Virtualization Mode looks promising. (we keep saying this for a while). The preview already delivers unified fabric inventory and bulk operations, native VMware → Hyper-V migration without 3rd-party tools with zero additional licensing cost.

For organizations running pure Hyper-V or Azure Stack HCI clusters of any size up to ~1,000 nodes, vMode becomes the central management plane (if they’re not already using SCMVMM because of high costs).

Download the preview today from the official Windows Admin Center download page and deploy it in a lab to test it. Production use is not supported until General Availability (expected mid-2026), but the current build is stable enough for evaluation and migration planning. If you want to just manage hosts, VMs and clusters, WAC does it. It even handles fail over cluster manager, and it works pretty well. Second release is due Q1 2026 and GA for the product is targeted for Q2 2026.

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