Server Core installs on Windows Server 2022 and 2025 carry no Explorer shell, no Start menu, and no Server Manager GUI. On a small VPS this is not a hardship — it is a measurable saving of roughly 1–2 GB of RAM, several hundred MB of patch surface, and a meaningfully smaller attack surface. What … Read more
iisnode is Microsoft’s open-source IIS extension that hosts Node.js applications inside IIS worker processes, giving Node apps the same process management, logging, and uptime behavior as ASP.NET sites. Instead of running node server.js in a terminal that dies when you log out of RDP, IIS starts your app on boot, restarts it when it crashes, … Read more
Remote Desktop is the most bandwidth-hungry part of a Windows VPS setup that most people never tune. The default experience settings assume a fast LAN: full wallpaper, font smoothing, window animations, and 32-bit color streamed continuously. Over hotel Wi-Fi or a link with 80–150 ms latency, that combination turns a responsive server into a slideshow. … Read more
Moving files to and from a Windows VPS is a solved problem, yet it is one of the most common support tickets. The confusion is usually terminology: FTP, FTPS, and SFTP are three different things, and Windows Server ships first-class support for all three. This article explains the differences with real port numbers and crypto … Read more
RDP is how you look at a Windows VPS; PowerShell Remoting is how you operate it. WinRM (Windows Remote Management) is built into every modern Windows Server and lets you run commands, scripts, and full interactive sessions over the network without a desktop session — the foundation of real automation. Here is how to enable … Read more
One Windows VPS with a single public IP can host an ASP.NET Core site, a Node.js API, a static site, and a WordPress install at the same time. The glue is IIS with the URL Rewrite module, and when you add Application Request Routing (ARR) it doubles as a reverse proxy that routes traffic to … Read more
Windows Server 2022 and 2025 ship with TLS 1.2 enabled by default, but many hardened VPS images still have legacy protocol bits turned on, and TLS 1.3 support depends on the exact build of Schannel. If you run IIS, SQL Server, .NET services, or an RDP endpoint, the transport security layer is the single most … Read more
Serve IIS sites over HTTPS with free Let’s Encrypt certificates, redirect HTTP, enable HTTP/2, enforce HSTS, and retire TLS 1.0/1.1.
Logging into a Windows VPS as Administrator for everything is a breach waiting to happen. Create standard users, scope RDP rights, and audit every logon.
Remote Desktop (RDP) is the standard way to manage a Windows VPS: it gives you a full desktop session over the network, so you can use Server Manager, install software, and run IIS Manager as if you were sitting at the console. The setup itself is only a few clicks, but doing it correctly — … Read more