Here is a straightforward, easy guide on installing and setting up a DayZ Standalone server on a Windows computer or server. For this guide I used Windows server 2016, it will work fine on Windows 10 or Server 2012r2 as well.

Note a more refined guide for Server 2019 can be found here.

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If you want to setup a server for your group or clan have a look at my post here about installing windows server 2016 on a Vultr VPS, It will save you money and for small to medium server sizes it is completely fine.

As for preparation this guide assumes you:

Have a Windows computer/server

Have a Steam account

Have Notepad++ installed

Lets begin

The first step is downloading the server files. This is done through Steam either through SteamCMD or the basic steam GUI which is what I am going to be doing.

Download / login / open Steam, hover the LIBRARY text in the top navigation bar and click on TOOLS

Find DayZ Server in the list, right-click it and click Install game.

Choose your download location and agree to the terms, wait for the download to finish.

Navigate to where you choose the server files to be downloaded to, by default it is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\DayZServer

Create a new text file and name it start.bat (remove the .txt) This is a batch file now, right-click and open it with Notepad++

Here we want to put a server start command with parameters, there are plenty of different ways to do it but this one is from this post.

The start command

@echo off :start ::Server name set serverName=Jims DayZ server ::Server files location set serverLocation="C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\DayZServer" ::Server Port set serverPort=2302 ::Server config set serverConfig=serverDZ.cfg ::Logical CPU cores to use (Equal or less than available) set serverCPU=2 ::Sets title for terminal (DONT edit) title %serverName% batch ::DayZServer location (DONT edit) cd "%serverLocation%" echo (%time%) %serverName% started. ::Launch parameters (edit end: -config=|-port=|-profiles=|-doLogs|-adminLog|-netLog|-freezeCheck|-filePatching|-BEpath=|-cpuCount=) start "DayZ Server" /min "DayZServer_x64.exe" -config=%serverConfig% -port=%serverPort% -cpuCount=%serverCPU% -dologs -adminlog -netlog -freezecheck ::Time in seconds before kill server process (14400 = 4 hours) timeout 14390 taskkill /im DayZServer_x64.exe /F ::Time in seconds to wait before.. timeout 10 ::Go back to the top and repeat the whole cycle again goto start

Copy it into start.bat and save.

NOTE If you choose a custom location to install the server files in, change the cd location. If you want to use another port other than 2302 change it also. Read up on the different launch parameters here, this batch file has the logging options enabled.

Open up serverDZ.cfg and edit it to your preferences, documentation for the serverDZ.cfg can be found here. Save your changes.

Navigate into the battleye folder, create a file called BEServer_x64.cfg paste and edit the following:

RConPassword changeme

This is your RCon password, to see chat ban and kick etc. Please change the changeme to your desired password. Having this setup is also crucial if you wanted to use BEC and scheduled restarts.

That is essentially all for getting a bare bones DayZ standalone server configured. For tinkering with loadouts, loot and zombies look in here.

Opening ports

For external play we will need to open ports, open Windows firewall with advanced security

Right click Inbound Rules in the top left and click New rule…

Select Port in the rule type section

Then UDP and enter 2302-2305 in specified local ports (NOTE This is for setting port 2302 in the serverDZ.cfg)

Click next, make sure allow the connection is selected and then that the rule applies to the network rules group you are on. Finally name it something like DayZ server and click finish!

To start your server double-click the start.bat Does it work? You may see some errors, the common ones I came across are:

VCRuntime140.dll is missing

To fix go here and install the x64 bit.

XAPOFX1_5.dll and/or X3DAudio1_7.dll are missing

Install the runtime from here, note it takes a couple of minutes to install.

You should be good to play on your DayZ Standalone server now by typing in your server or networks IP address followed by the port; like 127.0.0.1:2302