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At my workplace we've been using VMware vSphere as our VM server which uses the vSphere client to connect. Using a simple port forwarding rule on our router we've been able to allow all employees to access the VMs from anywhere they have internet access with just a username and password to log in.

I'm building a new VM server and I was testing Hyper-V to see if it will fit our needs better. I like the newer features of Hyper-V Enhanced Session Mode as they would greatly help with our workflow.

However I'm running into one huge problem -- there seems to be no easy way to use the Hyper-V Manager remotely. With VMware we are able to do everything by simply installing 1 client program on each client and forwarding only 2 ports on the router. The Hyper-V Manager seems to require a big confusing list of ports (which I found here). But it doesn't end there--even if I forward all of the proper ports I still cannot connect due to Windows security.

Even within the same LAN with Windows Firewall disabled you cannot connect to another server using the Hyper-V Manager unless you are on the same Windows Domain and you add the client user account to the Hyper-V Administrators group on the server. At my workplace we do not use a Windows Domain as we are a fairly small team of developers and we work primarily remotely.

From what I've read about getting Hyper-V to work with a Workgroup is that you need identical user accounts on both the client and the server and the password needs to match -- which is a nightmare to manage.

I was able to find a configuration script here to simplify the set up but it seems like a lot of micromanagement and it still doesn't address trying to connect over the internet.

Why is this so hard? When I want to use Remote Desktop to take control of a server I need to only forward a single port and it asks me for a username and a password of an account on the server. Why can't the Hyper-V Manager do the same? Is there not an intuitive way to do this?

EDIT:

To follow up: I have, for testing purposes, modified my router's port forwarding settings for forward all UDP/TCP ports to my Hyper-V Server. I also disabled Windows Firewall on both the client and the server. Then I created an identical username/password account on both the server and my client. And I enabled "Anonymous DCOM" as per the instructions above in John Howard's articles. I'm still getting an error "the operation on computer xxx failed".

The same steps were working for connecting to the server over the LAN. And with all ports being forwarded and no firewalls in place I don't see why it shouldn't be working over the internet.

I am tempted to setup a VPN just for using Hyper-V Manager -- but according to my research even connecting over a VPN is troublesome according to this article here!

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    Have you considered remote desktop into the server and using it "locally". You can even use RemoteApp to make the remote application appear "local".
    – chutz
    Mar 9, 2015 at 2:22
  • @chutz: Only 1 person can RDP into the server at a time. I may have 3-6 people using the Hyper-V Manager at one time. I would have to create a new local VM for each user just to run the Hyper-V Manager to access other VMs. This is what I have decided I will end up doing if there is no other option. Mar 9, 2015 at 2:58

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Microsoft has a tecnet article on how to configure Hyper-V for remote management in a workgroup (without a domain), you can find that here.

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