Azure VM Serial Console Windows

Newer Windows Server images on Azure will have Special Administrative Console (SAC) enabled by default. SAC is supported on server versions of Windows but is not available on client versions (for example, Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7). To enable Serial console for Windows virtual machines created before February 2018, please use the following steps :

VM’s that was created prior to February 2018 required to use this feature please enable by using the below steps:

From inside the VM open an Elevated CMD and run these 2 commands at the end reboot your VM:

1.  bcdedit /ems {current} on
2. bcdedit /emssettings EMSPORT:1 EMSBAUDRATE:115200

Serial console is enable to Windows Images since February 2018.

Once you enable it you may procced to learn more about the capabilities of this great tool.

First Let’s Connect to the serial Console by navigating to Azure Portal and the VM (On This Demo I am covering Windows Os)

After Connection has been established we need to create a channel and then connect to it. Then we need to create a Channel and connect to it :

by writing “cmd” and press enter to create a channel

write ch -sn (channel name) to coinnect the channel 

Once you connect to the Channel you are required to authenticate.

Press Enter to continue And use your credentials.

Once you finish that Phase you will be on your VM Cmd .

You can switch to PowerShell if you feel more comfortable with that shell.

Now we can Perform different operations as :

Enable Boot Menu \and boot in Last Known good configuration , or safe mode with networking .

Let’s Go back to CMD and Enable

Windows Boot Menu :

Exit PowerShell and enter the below values.

Once the boot Menu comes up quickly.

Press the FN to send an F8

Let’s create an example scenario:

This is my Environment.

Testing RDP Connectivity using Ps1

PS C:\> Test-NetConnection  13.82.130.173 -Port 3389 -Verbose

ComputerName     : 13.82.130.173

RemoteAddress    : 13.82.130.173

RemotePort       : 3389

InterfaceAlias   : Ethernet

SourceAddress    : 10.166.231.147

TcpTestSucceeded : True.

Now Let’s Create a Problem on the Guest VM 

I am disabling the Nic.

As you can see I lost connectivity to the VM.

Let’s jump into the serial console (even that we do not have network connectivity ) we still have this great connection to the console via serial port.

Let’s list the interfaces using our CMD

netsh interface show interface

now that we have the interface name let’s enable it.

netsh interface set interface “Ethernet 2” enable.

So overall this great tool is very helpful on some boot issues and other OS Guest related issues and can be a saver.

if you get stuck during the Process or this debug is not for You.

Please raise a ticket to MS Azure Support and an engineer will be happy to assist mitigate the issue.

Thank you ,

Tzachi Elkabatz