A web dashboard for Windows Server that installs with one double click.
No agent, no IIS, no external module, no database: a single PowerShell script publishes the page, and you open it from any computer on the LAN by typing the IP of the server.
Every small server ends up with the same question: what is it doing right now?
The usual answers are a heavy monitoring suite, an agent to install and keep
updated, or Remote Desktop and Task Manager. This project is the boring middle
ground: copy a folder, run Install.bat, and from then on the machine publishes
its own status page on port 8080.
It runs as a scheduled task called PiBOH Windows Server Dashboard, under
SYSTEM, starting at boot: the server can sit at the lock screen forever,
nobody needs to log on. The task carries a description explaining what it is,
and the software announces itself in the Windows event log at every start.
| Section | Details |
|---|---|
| CPU | total load, per-core bars, real clock speed, socket/core/thread count, temperature, trend chart |
| Memory | used / free / total, page file, installed modules (slot, size, speed), trend chart |
| Disks | one box per physical disk with bus and media type, containing its partitions: space used, file system and live read / write / busy per partition |
| Network | live download and upload, history chart, per-adapter figures, link speed, MAC, active TCP connections |
| IP configuration | IPv4, mask, gateway, DNS, IPv6, DHCP, per adapter |
| Operating system | version and build, manufacturer, model, BIOS, serial, install date, last boot, uptime, sessions |
| Processes | every process with the friendly name from the file ("Windows Explorer" for explorer.exe) as the main line and, right under it, the real image name (sqlservr.exe); PID, CPU %, RAM, threads, handles, full path in the tooltip |
| Services | the complete list with state, startup type, PID and log-on account |
| Events | critical, error and warning entries of the System and Application logs of the last 24 hours |
Tables sort by clicking the column headers, File Explorer style, and the choice is remembered by the browser.
1. Copy the folder to the server, for example C:\ServerDashboard\
2. Right-click Install.bat -> Run as administrator
3. When asked, type the optional password (or Enter for none) and choose
what it protects: the whole page or only the server options
4. From any PC on the LAN: http://<server-ip>:8080
The installer checks the machine first, applies only what is missing and prints every change with its BEFORE and AFTER value:
[+] Firewall rule "PiBOH Windows Server Dashboard 8080"
BEFORE : not present | AFTER : created (inbound, TCP 8080)
[=] URL reservation http://+:8080/
BEFORE : already reserved | AFTER : unchanged
[+] Scheduled task "ServerDashboard"
BEFORE : not present | AFTER : created, runs at boot as SYSTEM
[OK] AUTOSTART VERIFIED - no interactive logon needed
Uninstall.bat puts everything back exactly as it was, including a scheduled
task that happened to have the same name.
- Zero dependencies —
System.Net.HttpListener, part of Windows. IIS is not installed and port 80 is left alone. - Light on the server — metrics are sampled in tiers (CPU/RAM/network every cycle, processes every 5 s, disks every 10 s, services every 30 s, events every 60 s) and when nobody is watching the collector stops sampling completely, waking up within 250 ms of the first request.
- Live by default: the refresh interval is 0.5 s out of the box and can be set per browser from 0.5 s to 5 min; the server only sets the default.
- Light and dark theme, dark by default, saved per browser.
- Works on any localized Windows — every metric comes from CIM/WMI classes whose property names are always English.
- Read-only by design — the page only displays: no command can be executed.
The server settings cannot be changed from the browser unless you set the
optional password (
.config-do-not-delete-me\pwd, asked by the installer): total closes the whole page behind a login, partial leaves the page open and locks only the server options, unlocked by a popup the moment one of them is clicked.
The interface is translated into every language Windows Server 2016 ships as a display language. It opens in the language of Windows, and each visitor can pick another one from the footer; the choice is personal and saved in their browser.
ar-SA bg-BG cs-CZ da-DK de-DE el-GR en-GB en-US es-ES es-MX et-EE
fi-FI fr-CA fr-FR he-IL hr-HR hu-HU it-IT ja-JP ko-KR lt-LT lv-LV
nb-NO nl-NL pl-PL pt-BR pt-PT ro-RO ru-RU sk-SK sl-SI sr-Latn-RS
sv-SE th-TH tr-TR uk-UA zh-CN zh-TW
Arabic and Hebrew switch the layout to right-to-left. Adding a language means
copying one XML file into lang\ and translating the strings: it shows up in the
picker by itself.
| Option | Stored where | Who can change it |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | browser cache | every visitor |
| Language | browser cache | every visitor |
| Refresh interval | browser cache | every visitor |
| Default interval (0.5 s) | settings.txt |
only on the server |
| Visible sections | settings.txt |
only on the server |
| Logging on/off | settings.txt |
only on the server |
settings.txt is a plain text file you edit with Notepad; changes are picked up
within ten seconds, no restart needed. The API that serves it accepts GET only
and answers 403 to any write attempt, so a visitor can never reconfigure the
server.
windows-server-dashboard\
├── Install.bat install and start (as administrator)
├── Uninstall.bat undo exactly what the installer changed
├── Start-Dashboard.bat manual start, installs nothing
├── Stop-Dashboard.bat stop it
├── settings.txt server settings (auto-created, editable with Notepad)
├── scripts\ the engine, the updater and the helper scripts
│ └── version.txt the version: the single source of truth
├── lang\ the 38 translations
├── screenshots\ the images used by this page
├── Changelog\ CHANGELOG.md + release-notes\ (one file per release)
├── docs\ manual, logo, offline preview
└── logs\ one log file per day (auto-created)
At every start - the scheduled task runs at boot as SYSTEM, so no logon is
needed - the dashboard reads
scripts/version.txt from the main branch of this
repository. When the remote version is newer it downloads the release tagged
v<version>, unpacks it and copies it over the current files, never
touching settings.txt or the logs, then restarts itself on the new version.
Everything is written to the log, and to the Windows event log under the source
PiBOH Windows Server Dashboard.
auto_update = no in settings.txt -> disable it
scripts\Update-Now.bat -> check, stop, update, restart
Because of this mechanism, releases must always be tagged v<version>
(for example v1.16.0).
Open docs/Dashboard-Preview.html in any
browser: it is the real interface filled with sample data, all 38 languages and
both themes included. Nothing is installed and no network is used.
- Windows Server 2016 or newer (works on Windows 10/11 too)
- PowerShell 5.1, the one already in the box
- Administrator rights for the installation only
- CPU temperature needs a sensor: BIOS/ACPI, or just Core Temp running (the plain program, 32-bit or 64-bit - no add-on), LibreHardwareMonitor or HWiNFO
Run scripts\Diagnose.bat as administrator: it changes nothing and reports
the state of the scheduled task, whether the process runs and under which
account, what is listening on the port, the URL reservation, the firewall rule,
how the disks were detected and the last lines of the log, ending with a verdict:
>>> STARTS WITHOUT INTERACTIVE LOGON : YES
If it says NO, scripts\Repair-Autostart.bat rebuilds the task and the URL
reservation without reinstalling.
- Manual — every option explained, in ten short chapters
- Changelog — Semantic Versioning, from 1.0.0 to today
The dashboard has no authentication: anyone who can reach port 8080 sees the data. It is read only and no command can be run through it, but if the server is exposed to the Internet restrict the rule to your subnet:
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule ^
name="PiBOH Windows Server Dashboard 8080" ^
new remoteip=192.168.1.0/24MIT — do what you like with it, a mention is appreciated.