InterServer Windows VPS with Remote Desktop (2026): Slices, Connecting from Windows and Mac, First Hour, Plesk, Mail, Backups

1. What you are buying

InterServer's Windows Cloud Compute page describes the product as "Windows cloud compute with Remote Desktop on Hyper-V" and the pitch as "Run Windows Server workloads on Hyper-V cloud compute with Remote Desktop access, administrator control, and a 2-slice starting point." Hyper-V rather than the KVM of the Linux line; Remote Desktop, "preinstalled for easy access", rather than SSH; and a two-slice floor because "Windows Server needs more base resources than the smallest Linux VPS size."

Three things the page states that shape the purchase. Provisioning: "Windows VPS is normally ready in under 20 minutes after the order is accepted." Billing: "Windows VPS is billed month to month, and you can cancel from your account when you no longer need the server", and "There is no free trial for Windows VPS hosting." Network: "Each Windows VPS includes a 10Gbps shared port and monthly billing." The page prints no separate licence line for Windows Server; the slice price is the price shown, which is the difference from the cPanel path, where the panel licence is a second line.

2. The slice ladder and how to size it

The cards on the Windows page, which run to 32 slices; the first eight:

Cores are as printed on the cards; InterServer's FAQ describes the allocation as "every two slices has access to one CPU core". The cards step by $5 per slice; a Linux slice on the same site is $3.

How to read it: 4 GB is enough for Windows Server itself plus one light always-on program (a small .NET service, a file sync client, a single trading terminal with few charts). Anything with a database (SQL Server Express, a Plesk site with MySQL) or more than one desktop application wants the four-slice server, which is also the line InterServer draws for MetaTrader. Growing later is an account operation: "Increase the slice count when you need more CPU cores, memory, SSD storage, or transfer." You request the upgrade from your account and, per the page, the price rises by the difference between the old and new slice counts. Expect a reboot when resources change; sizing advice beyond InterServer's own two lines is this guide's judgement.

3. Which Windows Server version

InterServer's page: "Launch your server with the current Windows Server templates available in the order flow", without naming them. Microsoft's Windows Server release information, read in September 2026, gives the context for the choice:

Dates are as printed on Microsoft's Windows Server release information page. Microsoft's per-product lifecycle pages show the same moments as timestamps at 6:59:59 AM on the following day (10/14/2026 for Windows Server 2022 mainstream, 11/14/2029 for 2025, 1/10/2029 for 2019), the same cut-off expressed in a different time zone; both pages are in Sources.

Pick Windows Server 2025 if the order form offers it and the software you will run supports it. Windows Server 2022 leaves mainstream support the month after this guide was written, which does not stop security updates (extended support runs five more years) but does mean no new features or non-security fixes. Choose 2019 only for an application that requires it.

4. Connecting with Remote Desktop

What you need from InterServer is the server's public IP address and the Administrator password it issued; the page does not describe how credentials are delivered, so look in the welcome email and in My.InterServer. Remote Desktop listens on TCP port 3389 by default, per Microsoft.

• From a Windows PC. Use Remote Desktop Connection, the app built into every Windows edition: press Win+R, type mstsc, enter the IP address, then the username Administrator and the password. Microsoft's Windows App documentation is explicit that this is still the right tool for a plain server: "To connect to a remote PC using a generally available application, continue to use the Remote Desktop Connection app that comes with Windows (also known as MSTSC)"; remote PC connections in Windows App are in preview on Windows. The Remote Desktop app from the Microsoft Store "reached end of support on May 27, 2025".
• From a Mac. Install Windows App from the App Store. Microsoft: "The Remote Desktop client for macOS isn't available for download anymore and it's replaced by Windows App." In Windows App, add a PC (not a workspace: workspaces are for feeds an administrator publishes), enter the IP and the credentials.
• From an iPhone, iPad or Android device. Windows App as well; Microsoft lists it for iOS/iPadOS and Android/Chrome OS, and its table shows remote PC connections supported on all of them.
• The first connection will warn that the server's certificate cannot be verified. That is expected on a fresh server, which presents a self-signed certificate; check that the IP in the warning is your server's, then accept. Section 5 covers narrowing who can reach the port at all.

5. The first hour

The server arrives reachable from the whole internet on port 3389 with a password InterServer chose. The order below is this guide's, built from Microsoft's documentation for each step.

1. Change the Administrator password (Ctrl+Alt+End inside the session opens the security screen; or Settings, Accounts). Long, unique, in a password manager. RDP on a public IP is the most brute-forced service on the internet, and the password is the whole defence until step 3.
2. Windows Update. Settings, Windows Update, check for updates, install, reboot, repeat until clean. Set updates to install automatically: on a Desktop Experience install this is in Settings; on Server Core, Microsoft's SConfig tool shows the setting and "When Automatic is selected, the system will check for and install updates every day at 3:00 AM." A scheduled reboot at that hour is the price of staying patched on a single server; pick the hour your users are asleep.
3. Windows Firewall, scope the RDP rule. Microsoft describes Windows Firewall as "a host-based firewall that is included with the operating system and enabled by default on all Windows editions." The inbound rule for Remote Desktop exists already; open Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security, find the Remote Desktop (TCP-In) rule, and on its Scope tab restrict remote IP addresses to your own office or home address (or your VPN's exit). Do this from inside the session and confirm the session survives before closing it; if your address changes, you will need InterServer's console or a ticket to get back in, so leave a second known address in the scope.
4. Consider a non-default RDP port. It does not replace step 3, but it removes the server from the scanners that only try 3389. Microsoft's procedure: read the current value with Get-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp' -name 'PortNumber', set a new one with Set-ItemProperty on the same key, add a firewall rule for the new port, and reboot; then connect as ip:port. Add the new firewall rule before you reboot, or you lock yourself out.
5. Keep Network Level Authentication on. It is the default on current Windows Server and requires the client to authenticate before a desktop session is created; there is no reason to turn it off for a single-user server.
6. Time zone and a working folder. Set the time zone your application expects (trading platforms and schedulers care), and put your data on a folder you will include in backups (section 9), not on the desktop.

6. Keeping programs running after you disconnect

This is what most buyers of a Windows VPS want and InterServer's page promises it: "Remote Desktop access is included so applications can continue running after disconnecting", and "The system stays online and connected, and applications can continue to run after the remote desktop session ends." The detail that makes it work is the difference between disconnecting and signing out. Closing the Remote Desktop window, or choosing Disconnect, leaves your Windows session and everything in it running on the server; choosing Sign out ends the session and closes its programs. Always close the window; never sign out unless you mean to stop everything. A program that must survive a reboot as well needs to be a Windows service or a scheduled task set to run at startup, since a session does not survive the restart that Windows Update forces.

7. Plesk and control panels

InterServer's Windows page offers Plesk: "Add Plesk when websites, domains, users, updates, performance checks, and databases need a graphical control panel", and describes it as "a control panel for websites, domains, databases, users, updates, performance monitoring, and common hosting tasks on Windows", linking to its Plesk pricing page. Its VPS FAQ, on the same site, says: "We do not offer control panels for Windows VPS." The two pages disagree, and this guide does not pick; the order form shows what is actually selectable, and a pre-sales ticket settles it. If Plesk is the point of the purchase, ask first. The page's list of what the server is for without a panel is ASP.NET, .NET Framework, C#, Classic ASP, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access and Visual Basic; IIS ships with Windows Server for the web side.

8. Email and port 25

From the Windows page's FAQ: "Port 25 is closed by default on VPS instances. View the SMTP policies before planning mail delivery from a Windows VPS." The policy article is in InterServer's knowledge base, which returned a Cloudflare challenge to this site's tools, so it is linked in Sources rather than summarised here. In practice an application on a Windows VPS sends mail through an authenticated relay on port 587 (a transactional mail service, or the SMTP server of your own mail provider), which is unaffected by a closed port 25 and gets better delivery than a fresh IP would anyway.

9. Backups without snapshots

InterServer's VPS pages do not advertise snapshots, so there is no one-click image to roll back to before a risky update. Two options replace it. Windows Server Backup, the feature built into Windows Server (add it from Server Manager, Add Roles and Features), can schedule a full or file-level backup to a network share or a second disk; point it at storage off the server, which for InterServer customers is the Cloud Remote Backup Service its VPS page sells, or an SMB share on a second small server, or a cloud bucket through a sync client. Or run an application-level backup (a nightly database export plus a copy of the working folder) to the same kind of destination with a scheduled task. Either way, test a restore once. The InterServer VPS guide has the reasoning.

10. Support, upgrades and the Linux alternative

The Windows page: "InterServer support is available 24/7/365 through ticket, phone, and live chat when help is needed with server-related questions", and "Eight slices or more include managed support for common server, service, and control panel issues." Below eight slices, InterServer's FAQ describes its role as managing the operating system and helping with "boot issues, security updates, patches, and reinstalls"; what you install and configure inside Windows is yours.

The page is candid that Windows is the more expensive path: "Linux VPS is usually the lower-cost general server path. Windows VPS is for software, control panels, and workflows that need Windows Server compatibility." If the workload is a website, a database or a script that could run on Linux, the same money buys a larger Linux server with Webuzo included. If it needs a Windows desktop that stays on, a .NET or MSSQL stack, or a trading terminal, this is the product, and on this site it is the lowest fixed-price way to get one; the Windows VPS comparison puts it next to Vultr's and Hostwinds's.