Enable OpenSSH on Server 2022 and 2025, put administrator keys where sshd reads them, and script workstation setup. With the PowerShell for each step.
Windows as a production server platform, administered from PowerShell rather than the GUI, so every step can be repeated on the next machine.
Remote access first: enable OpenSSH on Server 2025 (or on Server 2022, where the capability has to be installed), then put an administrator’s key where Windows OpenSSH actually reads it. The three together are the OpenSSH on Windows Server series. Then the setup a fresh machine needs: VS Code without the installer’s questions and file extensions visible for every account.
The cmd.exe and VBScript leftovers are here too, because they still run in production and still break: how VBScript’s friction produced PowerShell’s pipeline.
17 articles
Guide12 min
A 7 Days to Die dedicated server running the old world on a new Windows Server, its build and save files checked against the old one before players move.
Guide12 min
Run a 7 Days to Die server from a Windows scheduled task with no time limit, and stop it over telnet so the shutdown finishes and the world is saved.
Guide11 min
Compare the buildid in the appmanifest with SteamCMD's app_info_print and run app_update only when they differ. Success! and exit code 0 prove nothing.
Guide11 min
A copied restore such as xcopy /E keeps files the backup lacks. Rename the live Saves folder aside and move the archive's in; the old world stays beside it.
Guide9 min
SteamCMD and a dedicated server installed on Windows Server, checked by the success line, the executable and the build ID rather than the exit code.
Guide7 min
Look up a dedicated server's Steam app ID, confirm it with SteamCMD, and see whether anonymous login can install it, checked here for 25 common servers.
Guide13 min
A 7 Days to Die server that starts on a clean Windows Server, with its saves where you choose and TCP 26900 and UDP 26900 to 26902 open in Windows Firewall.
Troubleshooting5 min
Cmdlets never set LASTEXITCODE, so after a failed cmdlet it still holds whatever the last native program returned, often zero.
Troubleshooting4 min
The subroutine runs before anything calls it, and its goto :eof ends the whole script, because cmd.exe reads straight down through a label.
Guide7 min
You end up with AWS.Tools in Program Files, where a task running as SYSTEM finds it; SYSTEM's module path never includes your Documents folder.
Guideupdated Oct 202622 min
The world lands in S3 every morning as an archive that restores onto a fresh server, and the task's result says whether that morning's copy arrived.
Explorationupdated Sep 20264 min
The friction that moved Windows automation from VBScript's text to PowerShell's objects also moved cloud tooling from scripts to declarative templates.
Guideupdated Sep 20266 min
Enabling SSH on Windows Server 2025 lets only Administrators and the OpenSSH Users group sign in. You turn it on with PowerShell, then choose who's in it.
Guideupdated Sep 20264 min
Windows OpenSSH ignores an administrator's authorized_keys. Put the key in administrators_authorized_keys with the right ACL, scripted for a fresh server.
Guideupdated Sep 20265 min
Install the OpenSSH server with PowerShell, start sshd at boot, confirm the port 22 rule, and connect, plus where an administrator's key really goes.
Guide4 min
Windows Server 2022 has no winget, but VS Code's own installer takes switches that install it for every account without showing a window.
Answer4 min
HideFileExt set to 0 shows file extensions for your account, and one Active Setup entry sets it for every account on the machine at its next sign-in.