Moving MetaTrader from a PC to a VPS

A MetaTrader that has lived on the same PC for two years is more than a program: chart profiles tuned by hand, twenty indicators from three sources, EAs with their .set files, Market products tied to activations, saved logins. Moving it to a VPS the wrong way means an evening rebuilding all of that from memory. This guide moves it the right way, in an order that keeps the PC as a fallback until the VPS has proven itself for a week.

1. Know what you are moving

Everything MetaTrader 5 owns lives in one folder, reachable from the terminal with File → Open Data Folder. On a normal Windows install that is C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Terminal\<long id>\. Inside it, five things matter:

• MQL5\Experts, MQL5\Indicators, MQL5\Scripts, MQL5\Libraries: your programs, compiled (.ex5) and, for the ones you own, their source (.mq5).
• MQL5\Presets: the .set files, the parameters of each EA. Often the most valuable and the most forgotten.
• MQL5\Profiles\Charts and MQL5\Profiles\Templates: chart layouts and templates (.tpl), the difference between "the EA is installed" and "the EA is on the right chart with the right settings".
• MQL5\Files: what your EAs write and read, licence files for some commercial products included.
• config\: terminal settings and saved account logins. Passwords are encrypted for that machine and do not travel; you will type them again.

On MetaTrader 4 the layout is the same with MQL4 and .ex4; profiles sit in profiles\ and templates in templates\ at the root of the data folder. History and tick data do not need to move: the terminal downloads them again from the broker.

2. Market products and activations

Anything bought on the MQL5 Market is bound to the hardware it was activated on. A new machine is a new activation. Each product comes with a fixed number, five or ten depending on the seller, shown on its Market page; the terminal decrements it when you install on the VPS, and there is no way to give one back from the old PC. Before moving, open Market → Purchases and check the count on each product you need. One activation left on a product you rely on is a reason to talk to the seller first.

Installing on the VPS goes through the same Purchases tab, not through a copy of the .ex5 file, which would not run. Log into your MQL5 account under Tools → Options → Community first.

3. Copy the files

Make an archive of the data folder on the PC while the terminal is closed, then bring it to the VPS. Over Remote Desktop the simplest route is clipboard copy and paste of the .zip, or a shared local drive enabled in the Remote Desktop client (Local Resources → Drives). On the VPS, with the terminal closed, unpack into its data folder, letting the copy overwrite what the fresh install created:

# PowerShell on the VPS, terminal closed
$dst = (Get-ChildItem "$env:APPDATA\MetaQuotes\Terminal" -Directory | Where-Object { Test-Path "$($_.FullName)\MQL5" })[0].FullName
Expand-Archive -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\mt5-data.zip" -DestinationPath $dst -Force
Get-ChildItem "$dst\MQL5\Presets" | Measure-Object | Select-Object Count

Files copied from a CD or from some network shares arrive read-only; if a .set refuses to save afterwards, clear the attribute on the folder (attrib -R /S). Start the terminal, right-click the Navigator and choose Refresh: your programs are listed. Recompile nothing; the compiled files run as they are.

4. Accounts, profiles, options

• Log in again. File → Login to Trade Account for each account, master password, tick Save account information if you want the terminal to reconnect on its own after a restart. It has to, on a machine nobody is sitting at.
• Load your profile. File → Profiles lists what you copied. Open the one you used; the charts come back with their templates, indicators and EAs attached.
• Allow algorithmic trading in Tools → Options → Expert Advisors, plus Allow DLL imports only if one of your products needs it. This setting does not travel with the files.
• Check the inputs of each EA once: an EA attached from a profile keeps its parameters, but a product reinstalled from the Market starts with its defaults. Load the .set from Presets.
• Time zone. The terminal shows broker time regardless of the machine; leave Windows on UTC or set it to yours, it changes nothing for trading. It changes the timestamps in the Experts log, so pick one and remember it.

5. Run both for a week

Do not turn the PC off the day the VPS goes live. Run the two in parallel on a demo account first, or with the live EAs disabled on one side, and compare the Experts logs: same signals, same times give or take the latency. Then move the live account to the VPS, keep the PC idle for a week, and only afterwards delete nothing: archive the PC's data folder somewhere and keep it. The VPS's own safety net is the console backup; take one the day the setup is final.

Checklist

• Activations counted on every Market product; seller contacted if one is short.
• Data folder archived on the PC with the terminal closed; Presets and Profiles inside.
• Archive unpacked into the VPS data folder; Navigator refreshed; read-only attribute cleared.
• Market products reinstalled from Purchases, .set files loaded.
• Accounts logged in with saved credentials, algorithmic trading allowed, profile loaded.
• A week in parallel, then a console backup.

If the VPS is not ordered yet, the Windows + MetaTrader template saves the installation step entirely: the terminal is there when you first log in.