Virtual Server with Microsoft Windows - Usage Hints

Hyper-V Virtual Server is the thing exactly like your own physical server. It is working on our equipment in virtual environment and you manage it using remote access. You do have 100% administrator/root access and there are no management limitations.

How to Manage Your Virtual Server

You can use so called "Remote Desktop Connection" utility in Microsoft Windows to connect to your VPS virtual desktop. In other OS-es it may be called RDP client or Remote Desktop client.

Server accepts two concurrent remote desktop connections in default configuration. If you are running Windows Server 2003 you may run out of available connections. To resolve this issue you should start mstsc.exe /console (for Windows XP) or mstsc.exe /admin (for Vista or Windows 7). Then connect to your server as usual, run Task Manager and logoff hanged sessions.

Please Attention - It Is Very Important

It is very important to run Windows Update and install Security Updates in time. If you disable Firewall, your system will be hacked in pieces in one week time if you do not run updates.

Run Windows Update once a week or configure Automatic Updates. Updates system is safe even with firewall disabled.
Do not turn off Firewall. Configurations with firewall disabled require attention and high administration skills.

Please fully update your system before you begin!

Please Attention - You Should Avoid This

Do not touch network settings or enable network services in your Virtual Server. You may disable network access and our interaction will be needed to re-enable your machine.
Do not disable "unneeded" Windows services. We have disabled everything you do not need already. Disabling other services can make your system offline.

Except for these rules you can do everything you want with the system. We will help you in case you lose control on your Windows machine.

You Should Do This to Start

Open computer manager (Server Manager in 2008+ or Computer Management in 2003). Open Disk Manager then and assign then format (quick format option) second physical disk. You will use it to store your files.
Please place all your files and Application Installs on this second disk drive.
Default Firewall rules block everything except remote desktop. Enable Firewall exceptions after you install your applications that require network access.
If you need SQL Server or something similar please contact our support.

What Else You Should Know

We make some maintains tasks to our equipment or software. This will lead to 30 to 90 minutes of service offline per month. We are trying to do this only in deep non-working ours.
You should comply with Microsoft Licensing rules. We may check your machine for conformance if we have suspect violation.
Do not try to use light servers for serious load. Virtual memory allows you to run any application in any server, but excessive disk swapping will force us to stop your Virtual Server because it will consume too much IO resources.
Do not forget that basic Hosting Plans of Virtual Machines are very cheap, but will give you sort of slow server. Plan your needs carefully.