IT administrators can now also manage ARM-based Windows PCs via Windows Admin Center, meaning the platform now supports the latest generation of Windows devices.
Microsoft is bringing the Windows Admin Center to ARM-based computers. Windows Admin Center is a browser-based management tool that allows IT professionals to manage servers, clusters, and client environments, among other things. Until now, this was only possible on x64 devices. With the addition of support for ARM PCs, Microsoft is extending the reach of the tool to a new category of devices.
ARM and compatibility
Although Microsoft supported earlier experiments to bring Windows to ARM, the operating system only really made the leap in mid-2024 with the introduction of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 and the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite. ARM generally offers Windows laptops significantly longer battery life, without sacrificing performance compared to x86 systems.
Compatibility remains a pain point, even though there are now many applications that natively support ARM on Windows, and emulation is also of a high standard. For example, it is striking that it took a year and a half to bring the Windows Admin Center to ARM systems. This illustrates the sometimes half-hearted support from Microsoft itself for ARM, where even its own solutions are not offered as a priority for the architecture.
Thanks to the update, IT teams can now perform the same management on both traditional and ARM-based systems. The user experience and available tools remain identical. This should simplify the management of hybrid environments. Support is available in version 2511 of Windows Admin Center, which is now available for download for ARM computers.