Setting up a Minecraft server on a Windows VPS

In this tutorial, we will be setting up a Minecraft server on a Windows based VPS.

Download the required files

First thing that you've got to do is download the server files from the Minecraft website, here. At the bottom of the page there are two files available to download, because we are setting this up on a Windows based VPS the easiest thing for us to do is download the "Minecraft_Server.exe" which is what you will use to install and run the server. Save this file to your computer, somewhere you will be able to find later.

Tip: Saving the file to an secondary drive will make a later step much easier.

Connecting to your Windows VPS

To connect to your Windows VPS you are going to have to run Remote Desktop Connection from your windows computer. Once you’ve launched the Remote desktop Connection Client you need to enter the IP address of your virtual server. Your account welcome email that you received once your account was activated will have the IP address listed that you need to use. You can find it in the “Remote Desktop Settings” portion of the email. This is also the IP address that you will use to connect to your Minecraft server.

• Before you press connect open up the Options tab, this is how you will get the files from your computer to your VPS. On the Local Resources tab under the Local device and resources you will find the “more..” button.

• Here you will find all of the available drives on your computer that can connect to your VPS. Select the drive that you saved the server file to. If you saved it to your desktop than the drive you will have to connect is the main drive or C: drive, if you saved it to a second drive then you will need to select that drive instead.

• When you have finished selecting your drives you can continue to connect to your VPS. If this is the first time you are connecting to your VPS you will need to enter your admin login details to connect, they can be found in your welcome email.

Once you have connected go to My Computer where you will find the drive that you’ve loaded. Navigate to where you saved the server files and copy them over to the desktop of your VPS. If you make a folder to put the .exe in, the server files will be kept together and keep it more organized.

Starting up the Server

Double click the “Minecraft_Server.exe” and the Minecraft server console will open. When starting the server for the first time the console will give you some warnings, don’t worry it is just missing the “server.properties” and the other files that are needed to run. The required files will be created in the same folder as the “Minecraft_Server.exe”.

• Now that you have the server up you can configure it. When the console is finished preparing the area, turn the server off. Type “stop” into the console to safely turn off the server. Once the server is off you can open up the “server.properties” file, notepad can open this type of file. The “server.properties” file contains all of the settings for your server.

You can find out what each line controls by reading this.

You don’t need to change anything in this file for your server to work, but you will need to check what port the server is using to host on, the default should be 25565. If it’s not change it to 25565. To ensure that others can connect to the server you will need to allow the port used by Minecraft through the VPS’s firewall.

Firewall Settings

What you need to do so others can connect to your server is to create a new inbound rule allowing the connection through the 25565 port. Once that is done your server is ready to be used. You can change the firewall setting in the Server Manager, under Configuration.

• The new rule is going to be applied to a port.

• Make sure it is set as a TCP port and that you are using the correct specific local port.Allow the connection for all profiles, and then name you newly created rule and click finish.

Double click on the “Minecraft_Server.exe” and wait for the console to completely start up. Once it has finished preparing the staring region your server will be up and running. Login to Minecraft and try connecting to your newly created server. Congratulations you have just successfully created your own Minecraft Server.