code-server-windows

March 16, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Source-controlled setup files for running code-server on Windows directly and through IIS /dev.

This project provides Windows and IIS setup automation for code-server. The upstream code-server project is maintained by Coder: https://github.com/coder/code-server

This repository intentionally tracks the authored parts of the workspace and ignores the live machine state. That keeps Git history portable and avoids committing local credentials, private keys, logs, screenshots, and bundled runtime directories.

License Scope

The MIT LICENSE in this repository applies to the original files stored in Git in this project, such as the PowerShell scripts, documentation, and example configs.

This repo also downloads, installs, or copies third-party components during local setup, including code-server, Node.js, and native modules from an installed desktop Visual Studio Code. Those third-party components are not relicensed by this repository and remain subject to their own upstream licenses and terms.

See NOTICE for a short summary.

Supported Scripts

This repo keeps these supported setup scripts:

  • scripts/01-install-standalone-direct-code-server.ps1 Installs the repo-local code-server runtime and writes start.bat for direct local access on http://127.0.0.1:8080.
  • scripts/02-create-iis-dev-reverse-proxy.ps1 Creates or updates Default Web Site/dev as an IIS reverse proxy to the local code-server backend.
  • scripts/update-code-server.ps1 Reinstalls the repo-local runtime to the latest code-server release while reusing the current password and port from the local config.

Getting Started

Open an elevated PowerShell session in the repo root and run:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process Bypass
.\scripts\01-install-standalone-direct-code-server.ps1
.\start.bat
.\scripts\02-create-iis-dev-reverse-proxy.ps1

For a non-interactive password, use either:

.\scripts\01-install-standalone-direct-code-server.ps1 -Password 'N@sh!123404015'

or the positional shorthand:

.\scripts\01-install-standalone-direct-code-server.ps1 'N@sh!123404015'

Then open either:

  • http://127.0.0.1:8080
  • https://localhost/dev

Updating code-server

When a new upstream code-server release is available, run:

.\scripts\update-code-server.ps1

The updater reads the current password and port from configs/code-server-config.yaml, refreshes code-server-runtime/, and then you can start the updated runtime again with:

.\start.bat

If you want to pin a specific version instead of the latest published release:

.\scripts\update-code-server.ps1 -CodeServerVersion 4.111.0

Fresh Clone Output

These paths are intentionally generated locally instead of being stored in Git:

  • code-server-runtime/
  • configs/code-server-config.yaml
  • configs/code-server-credentials.txt
  • data/
  • logs/
  • node22/
  • start.bat

Tracked

  • scripts/
  • docs/manual-guides/
  • configs/*.example

Ignored

  • data/
  • logs/
  • downloads/
  • node22/
  • code-server-runtime/
  • live config, credentials, and PID files

Notes

  • The standalone installer writes the runtime config and credentials locally.
  • docs/manual-guides/01-standalone-direct-code-server-guide.md and docs/manual-guides/02-iis-dev-reverse-proxy-script-guide.md are the current reference guides.
  • The example files in configs/ document the expected shape without storing secrets.
  • NOTICE clarifies the intended scope of this repo's MIT license versus third-party components generated or downloaded during setup.