It is good news for the Windows Insiders as Windows Admin Center Preview gets introduced to them today by Microsoft. The Windows Server 2019 Insider Preview build 17692 got released today as put up on Window’s blog post by Brandon LeBlanc and Dona Sarkar (Insider chief).
Two versions have been announced in the post, the Preview and the GA version. The GA (general availability) version is 1804.25 for IT admins who need more validation time for updates and releases in production, but the Preview version is the maiden in a series of monthly releases, and unlike the GA version should be production-ready with subsequent releases every month. But, the Preview version will also contain some features that will be marked as a PREVIEW, and as the name suggests, are meant for evaluation and testing.
The new features included as stated in a nutshell are:
- Catering to Microsoft user request of viewing/copying the PowerShell scripts that Windows Admin Center is using under the hood.
- Controlling and managing Windows Server 2008 R2 connections with a given set of tools keeping in line with a major customer request
- New tools to manage the user’s Software Defined Network (SDN) in Hyper-Converged Cluster Manager
A tool enabling New Scheduled Tasks - Additional features such as an update notification dialog, multiple extension feed, a new option to redirect web traffic from port 80 and so on.
- The gateway settings page, notifications, connection tag editing experience, and extension management experience form the improvements to the current features.
Some glitches that should be known are:
- The remote desktop tool of Windows Server 2008 R2 connections is presently not available due to a bug problem found in the HTML RD client.
- The Error message formatting and form validation are on the back-foot in the Scheduled Tasks domain.
- This preview is not compatible with the SDN environments with Kerberos authentication for Northbound communication.
- This preview release does not support connecting the virtual machine to an SDN logical network.
Additionally, as mentioned in the blog post, if the user faces other issues not listed above, they are urged to post about the same on the Windows Admin Center space in the Windows Server Community for Insiders, so that Microsoft can immediately make a note of them and add them up for future resolution.
The insiders, Microsoft users as well as tech enthusiasts interested in knowing the full details, can look up the blog post for the detailed description of each new feature and the glitches.
Download procedure
The registered Insiders can directly download the Windows Admin Center Preview 1806 from the Windows Server Insider Preview download page, as under the Additional Downloads dropdown. For the others, they are to look up Getting Started with Windows Server on the Windows Insiders for a Business portal to know how to go about the process.
Key point: give your valuable feedback
As stated in the post, the most vital element of any frequent release cycle is to get to know what’s working down the path and what’s not so that it can be worked upon. Hence, feedback is a must and the insiders can send their feedback to Microsoft via UserVoice. Furthermore, they can also check out the Windows Admin Center space on the Microsoft Tech Communities forum for fun and enriching experience of collaborating, sharing and learning first-hand from the Microsoft experts.
Terms of use
As this is a pre-release software, meaning that it is offered for use “as-is” but is not compatible as of yet, in production environments, thereby the users are responsible for installing updates available from Windows Update till the build is available. And, the Insider Terms of Use dictate over any license agreement in the product as all pre-release software reaching the users via the Windows Server Insider program is governed by the Insider Terms of Use exclusively.
With this new addition to its impressive line-up of software that the users around the world have been using extensively to date, Microsoft underlines one of its own software taglines: ‘Be what’s next.
