VPS and web hosting

How to connect to a Windows VPS with Remote Desktop

You connect to a Windows Server VPS through Remote Desktop (RDP): you see the server’s desktop in a window and work on it as on a computer of your own. The Windows license and RDP access are part of the plan price. This guide shows how to connect from any device and what to set up afterwards.

Updated on 16 October 20262 min readThe NeoHost team

Which plans have Windows

Windows runs only on KVM: Flex from Flex 3, Core from Core 3, Compute on every plan and Ruby from Ruby 2. It is not possible on Spark, which is LXC. The image is Windows Server 2022, and on Ruby there is also GameReady™ OS on Windows Server 2022, for game servers.

The Bucharest families run on Intel Xeon Gold 6140, in NXDATA-1; Ruby runs in Frankfurt, in maincubes FRA-01, on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. The full list is on the Windows VPS page.

What you need

The server’s IP address, the user and the password, from the activation email.
A Remote Desktop client. Windows already has one; for the rest, see below.

Connecting, step by step

On Windows: press Win + R, type mstsc and press Enter. Remote Desktop Connection opens.
In Computer, enter the server’s IP address and click Connect.
Enter the user and the password from the email.
Windows warns you that the server’s certificate is not from a trusted authority. That is normal on a new server: tick the box so it does not ask again, and continue.

On macOS, iPhone, iPad and Android, use Microsoft’s Windows App (formerly Microsoft Remote Desktop), from the App Store or Google Play: add a new PC with the IP address and connect with the same details. On Linux, Remmina works, with the RDP protocol.

The default RDP port is 3389. If you change it on the server, add it after the address, with a colon.

The first minutes on the server

Change the password: Ctrl + Alt + End in the RDP window, then Change a password.
Run Windows Update and restart the server if it asks you to.
Leave Windows Firewall on and open only the ports your apps need.

Bots try the RDP port every day, guessing passwords. A long, unique password is the simplest protection; do not reuse one from another account.

Files between your computer and the server

The simplest way is copy and paste: a file you copy on your computer can be pasted into the RDP window. For more files, in Remote Desktop Connection open Show Options, Local Resources, More and tick a local drive: you then see it on the server, in File Explorer.