This section is a collection of suggestions for getting a Windows Server to behave nicely. Note that the guidance is primarily for locally hosted and test VMs and no claims are made to these being best practices for an enterprise server. In particular items marked * apply to this particular use case to speed up the VM or ease configuration and navigation but are probably not good production recommendations.

Some things to consider first off are:

  • Prevent auto-start of Server Manager (reference)
  • Allow network discovery (reference)
  • Remove Windows Defender* (reference)
  • Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode* (reference)
  • Unless otherwise needed don't require password changes every x days (reference)
  • Set File Explorer to view extensions and hidden files