How do you keep track of what’s really running inside your Windows VMs?

Posted by tommipani@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 28 comments

Hi everyone,
I'm 21 and currently doing an internship in IT, working in an environment with a decent number of Windows VMs on vSphere. One of the biggest challenges I've faced so far is simply trying to keep track of what’s actually running inside those machines.

Over time, I noticed a few recurring issues that caused unnecessary stress:

I looked for tools to help with this, but most of what I found was either part of large enterprise suites we can’t afford, or required agents everywhere, which isn't always realistic.

So, as a side project, I built a PowerShell script that:

This isn’t a product or anything—just something I built to help myself and maybe my team. But it got me thinking:

I’d really appreciate hearing how more experienced teams approach this. I'm trying to learn, improve what I built, or at least understand if I’ve been solving a problem that already has a better answer.

Thanks in advance for any insights.