MHOSTMHOST

Installing software on a Windows server

This article covers installing software on an mHost Windows server: why the default browser refuses to download files, the fastest way to get a working Google Chrome, how to run regular .exe/.msi installers afterward, what winget is, and how to use ready-made VMmanager 6 recipes.

What you'll need

  • An mHost Windows server — Windows Server 2012 R2/2016/2019/2022 or Windows 10/11 all work.
  • A connection to the server over RDP using an account with administrator rights.
  • Access to the VMmanager 6 panel, if you plan to use ready-made recipes — see the "Ready-made VMmanager 6 recipes" article.

Step 1. Understand why the default browser blocks downloads

Every Windows Server image ships with Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) turned on by default — this article just calls it ESC for short. It puts almost every website into a "restricted" Windows security zone and blocks scripts, ActiveX, and file downloads there — only explicitly listed addresses are trusted. In practice this shows up as a warning that the page's content is blocked by the enhanced security settings, or the installer simply never starts downloading.

On Windows Server 2019/2022 the pre-installed default browser is Microsoft Edge, but that doesn't help: the OS image is still configured as if Internet Explorer were the main browser, with the same Windows security zones and the same "not on the trusted list — content gets blocked" logic. So the same toggle and the same workaround below apply whether you're dealing with Internet Explorer or Edge.

Verify: the exact wording of the warning and the behavior depend on your Windows version, language, and updates — if you're on Edge and it still blocks downloads after turning ESC off, also check its privacy settings and SmartScreen (edge://settings/privacy).

ESC is turned on separately for the "Administrators" group and the "Users" group — both toggles are visible in Server Manager.

Tip: ESC has no effect on VMmanager 6 recipes (Step 5 below) — a recipe runs directly on the server, without any browser involved.

You can turn ESC off (and back on later) in two ways.

Method 1. Through Server Manager

  1. Open Server Manager from the Start menu.
  2. Go to the "Local Server" section.
  3. Find the "IE Enhanced Security Configuration" line and click its current value ("On").
  4. In the window that opens, select "Off" for the groups you need — "Administrators", "Users", or both.
  5. Click "OK", then refresh Server Manager with F5 to confirm the value changed to "Off".

📷 screenshot: Server Manager, "Local Server" section with the "IE Enhanced Security Configuration" line and the "Administrators" / "Users" toggle window

Method 2. Through PowerShell

powershell
$adminKey = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{A509B1A7-37EF-4b3f-8CFC-4F3A74704073}"
$userKey  = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{A509B1A8-37EF-4b3f-8CFC-4F3A74704073}"
Set-ItemProperty -Path $adminKey -Name "IsInstalled" -Value 0
Set-ItemProperty -Path $userKey  -Name "IsInstalled" -Value 0

After that, sign out and back in (or reboot the server) so the change is guaranteed to take effect. To turn ESC back on, set IsInstalled to 1 with the same commands and sign in again.

Important: ESC is a real protection mechanism, not just an annoyance. Turn it off deliberately and briefly (for example, to download one installer), then turn it back on the same way when you're done. If you don't plan to keep trusting the browser long-term, it's simpler to leave ESC alone for Internet Explorer/Edge entirely and just get Chrome using one of the methods in the next step instead.

Step 2. Install Google Chrome

Chrome isn't subject to ESC restrictions — it doesn't use Windows security zones, so once it's installed, downloading and running any other installer becomes much simpler. There are two ways to get Chrome.

Option A (recommended): the VMmanager 6 recipe

The most reliable way is to avoid dealing with the blocked browser at all. VMmanager 6 has a ready-made "Google Chrome" recipe: it downloads and installs the browser on the server directly, bypassing ESC and without a single manual download. The recipe runs right on a live server — no OS reinstall, no data loss.

Step-by-step instructions are in the "Installing Google Chrome on a Windows server" article.

Option B: download Chrome manually

  1. Turn off ESC using Method 1 or Method 2 from Step 1 (at least for the group you're logged in as).
  2. Open https://www.google.com/chrome/ in the browser.
  3. Download the installer and run it, following the setup wizard.
  4. Once it's installed, you can turn ESC back on for Internet Explorer/Edge — it won't affect Chrome itself.
Tip: if you'd rather not turn off ESC even briefly, there's a narrower workaround — add google.com and dl.google.com to the "Trusted sites" zone: Internet Options → Security → Trusted sites → Sites. That unblocks downloads only for those addresses, while ESC stays on for everything else.
Done: Chrome shows up in the Start menu and launches — from here on, it's easier to run installs through it.

Step 3. Download and run installers

Once Chrome (or any other browser without ESC restrictions) is on the system, regular Windows installers go smoothly:

  1. Download the installer (.exe or .msi) from the software's official site.
  2. Open the downloaded file through File Explorer — by default it lands in C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads.
  3. If Windows shows a SmartScreen screen warning "Windows protected your PC" — that doesn't mean the file is infected: SmartScreen just hasn't built up reputation data for a new installer yet. After confirming you downloaded the file from the official site, click "More info" → "Run anyway".
  4. Confirm the User Account Control (UAC) prompt if you're deliberately running the installer as administrator.
  5. Go through the setup wizard — "Next" → "Next" → "Install".

📷 screenshot: the SmartScreen "Windows protected your PC" dialog with "More info" and "Run anyway" buttons

Tip: for a silent install with no dialog boxes (for example, from a script), most .msi packages support the /qn flag:
powershell
msiexec /i "C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\installer.msi" /qn /norestart

For .exe installers, the silent-install flag depends on what the installer was built with — usually /S (NSIS), or /verysilent//silent (Inno Setup). The exact flag is usually in the program's documentation, or shows up by running installer.exe /?.

Step 4. Winget — installing software from the command line

winget (Windows Package Manager) is Microsoft's command-line package manager: one command finds, downloads, and installs a program without a trip to the developer's website.

Check whether it's available on your server:

powershell
winget --version

If the command isn't found, winget isn't pre-installed. That's the case on most Windows servers: winget ships as part of App Installer, which updates through the Microsoft Store on Windows 10/11 — and server editions of Windows Server (2012 R2/2016/2019/2022) don't have a Store, so winget isn't there by default and has to be installed manually.

Verify: Microsoft officially supports winget starting with Windows 10 version 1809 (build 17763); among server versions, only Windows Server 2025 ships with winget out of the box. On Windows Server 2012 R2 and 2016 (older builds) it won't work even after a manual install. Requirements can change — check the official winget documentation.

If your OS version is new enough but winget still isn't available, install it through Microsoft's official PowerShell module:

powershell
Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force
Install-Module -Name Microsoft.WinGet.Client -Force -Repository PSGallery
Repair-WinGetPackageManager -AllUsers

Then check winget --version again — it should work.

Verify: Microsoft officially documents this method for Windows Sandbox — an environment that, like Windows Server, has no Microsoft Store. In practice it works the same way on server OSes, but if something doesn't go as expected, current install options are listed in the winget-cli repository on GitHub.

Once winget is available, installing software looks like this:

powershell
winget search 7zip
winget install --id 7zip.7zip -e --silent
winget upgrade --all

The --silent flag installs the program with no dialog boxes — handy for server scenarios. The full command list is available via winget --help.

Step 5. Other ready-made VMmanager 6 recipes

The "Google Chrome" recipe from Step 2 isn't the only one. VMmanager 6 has more than twenty ready-made recipes: control panels, web stacks, VPN, monitoring, and more. Each one is applied the same way — the "⋮" icon next to the server in the virtual machine list → "Run script" → pick the recipe from the list — no manual work with installers, and no browser at all. The full catalog with recipe IDs and supported OSes is in the "Ready-made VMmanager 6 recipes" article.

Tip: for Windows servers, Chrome is currently the only recipe in the catalog. If the software you need isn't among the recipes, install it manually using the methods from Steps 2–4 above, or ask mHost support to consider adding a recipe for it.

What's next

Your software is installed — that covers the basics of setting up software on a Windows server. For a detailed step-by-step walkthrough of the Chrome recipe, from logging into the panel to the finished result, see the "Installing Google Chrome on a Windows server" article. The full catalog of other ready-made VMmanager 6 recipes is in the "Ready-made VMmanager 6 recipes" article.

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