Windows Hosting

What is Windows hosting and who needs it?

Windows hosting is a shared hosting service that runs web applications built with Microsoft technologies on Windows Server and IIS (Internet Information Services). If your application is written in .NET or uses MSSQL as its database, Windows hosting is not a preference but a requirement.

Typical users of these plans are:

• companies running business sites and dealer portals built with ASP.NET Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC,
• software teams developing web APIs or Razor Pages applications with ASP.NET Core,
• businesses that must keep running applications written years ago in classic ASP that still do the job,
• teams that keep accounting, inventory or order data in an MSSQL database and access it through a web interface.

Server setup, Windows updates, IIS maintenance and hardware are handled by LIONFIN; you publish and manage your application from the panel.

What is included in a Windows hosting plan?

Every Windows hosting plan includes ASP, ASP.NET and MSSQL support, the Plesk control panel, IIS configuration and .NET version selection. Plans differ in the number of sites, databases and mailboxes and in their CPU and memory share.

• Plesk panel: manage sites, databases, email, SSL and backups from a single interface.
• IIS and .NET version selection: application pool settings and the .NET version are chosen per site.
• MSSQL and MySQL: Microsoft SQL Server for .NET applications; MySQL for PHP or open-source software.
• Email on your domain: professional addresses up to the plan’s mailbox count and quota, with webmail, IMAP and SMTP access.
• Unmetered traffic: there is no monthly data transfer quota; the real limits are CPU, memory and disk allocation.
• Defined CPU and memory allocation: each plan gets a set number of cores and memory, increasing on higher plans.

Site, database, mailbox and disk values for each plan are shown in the plan table on this page.

What is the difference between ASP.NET Framework and ASP.NET Core?

ASP.NET Framework is the older .NET platform that runs only on Windows and executes directly inside an IIS application pool; ASP.NET Core is the cross-platform, modular and faster new generation. Both run on Windows hosting, but they are published and configured differently.

For ASP.NET Core applications, the .NET version you target must be installed on the server. If your project targets a new version, confirm it with a support ticket before ordering, or publish the application as self-contained; the runtime then ships with your application folder, at the cost of more disk usage.

How do you set the .NET version and IIS settings in Plesk?

On Windows hosting, the .NET version and IIS settings are configured in the site settings under Websites & Domains in Plesk. You do not need to connect to the server with remote desktop; the application pool, default documents and error pages are edited from the panel.

1. Select the site: open the domain on the Websites & Domains screen in Plesk.
2. Check the hosting settings: on the Hosting Settings screen, confirm that ASP.NET support is enabled and verify the document root.
3. Choose the .NET version: select the version your application targets on the ASP.NET Settings screen.
4. Review connection strings and custom errors: turn off detailed error pages in production.
5. Restart the application pool: restarting the pool after a configuration change applies it immediately.

Common configuration errors such as “500.19” usually point to an invalid or unsupported section in web.config; check the file first when you see one.

How do you use an MSSQL database on Windows hosting?

You create an MSSQL database with Add Database on the Databases screen in Plesk and choose Microsoft SQL Server as the database type. The username and password you define during creation are used in your application’s connection string.

A typical connection string looks like this:

Server=SERVER_NAME;Database=DATABASE;User Id=USER;Password=PASSWORD;TrustServerCertificate=True;

The server name and connection details are shown on the database screen in Plesk. Instead of embedding the connection string in source code, keep it in appsettings.Production.json for ASP.NET Core or in the connectionStrings section of web.config for ASP.NET Framework, and do not commit these files with their passwords to version control.

There are two ways to move an existing database: export the schema and data as a script with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and run it on the new database, or restore a backup file from the panel. You can confirm with a support ticket whether remote connections with SSMS are enabled on your plan.

Database size counts against the plan’s disk space; archiving large log tables and old records regularly protects both space and query time.

How do you publish a .NET application to Windows hosting?

The most reliable way to publish a .NET application to Windows hosting is to produce publish output in a folder with Visual Studio or dotnet publish and upload that output to the site’s document root over FTP. You upload the compiled publish output, not the source code.

dotnet publish -c Release -o ./publish

Things to watch out for during upload:

• Locked DLLs: the files of a running ASP.NET Core application may be locked. Placing a file named app_offline.htm in the document root before uploading stops the application temporarily; delete it when the upload is finished.
• Environment name: in ASP.NET Core, ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT must be Production; going live with development settings leaves detailed error pages exposed.
• Write permissions: upload or log folders need write permission for the application pool identity; you can set this in Plesk’s file manager.
• Secure transfer: use an encrypted connection (FTPS) in your FTP client whenever possible.

Teams that want to deploy directly from version control can ask the support team whether Plesk’s Git feature is enabled on their plan.

How do you configure redirects and security with web.config?

On Windows hosting, the counterpart of the Linux .htaccess file is web.config; redirects, default documents, MIME types and security headers are managed from this file. IIS reads the file on every request and applies changes as soon as they are saved.

A typical rule that redirects all traffic to HTTPS looks like this:

<rewrite>
  <rules>
    <rule name="HTTPS" stopProcessing="true">
      <match url="(.*)" />
      <conditions>
        <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" />
      </conditions>
      <action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" redirectType="Permanent" />
    </rule>
  </rules>
</rewrite>

This block goes inside <system.webServer>.

For security, also check the following: customErrors, or the developer exception page in ASP.NET Core, must be off in production; directory browsing must stay disabled; and add headers such as X-Content-Type-Options and X-Frame-Options. A faulty web.config can bring the whole site down with a 500 error, so keep a copy of the file before making changes.

How do you move an existing .NET application to Windows hosting?

Moving an existing .NET application to Windows hosting means transferring the application files, database and configuration in turn and pointing the domain last. Leaving the domain until the end lets you test the new environment before visitors arrive.

1. Take inventory: list the .NET version the application targets, the databases it uses, scheduled jobs, upload folders and external service connections.
2. Move the database: export the MSSQL database as a script or backup file, create the new database in Plesk and import it. If some parts use MySQL, move those separately too.
3. Upload the publish output: republish the application in Release mode and upload it over FTP; use clean publish output instead of copying the old server’s bin folder as is.
4. Update the configuration: adjust connection strings, file paths and SMTP settings for the new environment.
5. Test with a temporary address: add the new server IP to your computer’s hosts file to try the site without changing the domain.
6. Point the domain: once testing is complete, change the DNS records and issue the SSL certificate.

If you get stuck at any step, open a support ticket from the customer panel.

Windows hosting or Linux hosting?

If your application uses .NET or MSSQL, choose Windows hosting; if it uses PHP, MySQL, Python or Node.js, choose Linux hosting. The decision depends on the technology the application is written in, not on your computer’s operating system; a Windows user can manage Linux hosting from the panel with ease.

For a PHP-based project, see the Linux hosting plans.

How do you choose between Windows hosting plans?

When choosing a Windows hosting plan, first decide how many applications you will publish and how many databases each needs; then take the .NET application’s memory usage into account. Because .NET applications are compiled and loaded into memory on the first request, the memory share matters more than it does for PHP sites.

• Economy Windows Hosting: a single ASP.NET site or a small business portal; one database.
• Popular Windows Hosting: a live application with a test copy, or several small sites; more mailboxes and databases.
• Professional Windows Hosting: several client applications, a higher CPU and memory share, and more stable response times during busy working hours.

When the application pool receives no requests for a long time it idles, which makes the next first request slow to load; this “cold start” is normal in a shared environment. For a low-traffic application that needs a fast first response, a monitoring service that calls the page at regular intervals can help. Plan values are shown in the table on this page.

How are SSL, security and backups managed on Windows hosting?

On Windows hosting, SSL certificates, backups and basic security settings are managed through Plesk, while network-layer protection is part of the LIONFIN infrastructure. The RouteFence firewall performs network-level DDoS filtering, and servers are monitored by 24/7 NOC and SOC teams.

• SSL: get a free Let’s Encrypt certificate or upload a paid one from the SSL/TLS Certificates screen in Plesk. Paid options are listed under SSL certificates.
• Backups: use Backup Manager to back up and download your files, databases and email.
• Credentials: keep connection strings and API keys in encrypted configuration sections or environment variables, and log in to the panel with two-factor authentication.
• Dependencies: keep NuGet packages up to date; a library with a known vulnerability puts the whole application at risk.

Taking a manual backup from the panel before an important release lets you return to the previous state within minutes if something goes wrong.

When is Windows hosting not enough?

Windows hosting is not enough when you need to install a Windows Service, connect to the server with remote desktop, run scheduled jobs with SQL Server Agent or run a desktop application. These operations require server administrator rights, which are not granted in a shared environment.

• Remote desktop and full administrator rights: to manage Windows Server yourself, configure IIS from scratch or install a background service, choose an RDP server or a VPS server with Windows installed.
• Desktop and business software: commercial software used over the network belongs on a server you control, such as an RDP server or VDS.
• Selling Windows hosting to your own customers: with Plesk-based Windows reseller hosting plans you can open separate panels for your customers.

If you will run your own Windows Server, understanding how operating system licensing works in advance avoids budget surprises; see operating system licenses.