Configure your Amazon EC2 Windows instance
After you've launched a Windows instance, you can log in as an administrator to perform additional configuration for Windows features and system settings. EC2 Windows troubleshooting utilities can help you troubleshoot issues on your instance.
You can configure Windows launch agents and other Windows-specific features as follows.
- Windows launch agents
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Each AWS Windows AMI (and many other AMIs that are available on the AWS Marketplace) includes a Windows launch agent that's pre-configured with default settings. Launch agents perform tasks during instance startup and run if an instance is stopped and later started, or restarted.
- EC2 Fast Launch for Windows
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Every Amazon EC2 Windows instance must go through the standard Windows operating system (OS) launch steps, which include several reboots, and often take 15 minutes or longer to complete. Amazon EC2 Windows Server AMIs that have the EC2 Fast Launch feature enabled complete some of those steps and reboots in advance to reduce the time it takes to launch an instance.
Windows-specific system settings
The following list includes some system settings that apply only for Windows operating systems:
- Change the Windows Administrator password
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When you connect to a Windows instance, you must specify a user account and password that has permission to access the instance. The first time that you connect to an instance, you must use the Administrator account and provide the default password. When you connect to an instance the first time, we recommend that you change the Administrator password from its default value.
- Add Windows System components
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Windows Server operating systems include many optional components. Including all optional components in each AWS Windows Server AMI is not practical. Instead, we provide installation media EBS snapshots that have the necessary files to configure or install components on your Windows instance.
- Install WSL on Windows
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Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a free download that you can install on your Windows instance. By installing WSL, you can run native Linux command line tools directly on your Windows instance and use the Linux tools for scripting, alongside your traditional Windows desktop. You can easily swap between Linux and Windows on a single Windows instance, which you might find useful in a development environment.
AWS device drivers for Windows instances
You can update the AWS device drivers for your Windows instances. For more information, see Manage device drivers for your EC2 instance.
The following table summarizes the supported drivers for Nitro-based instances by Windows version.
| Version | Storage driver | Enhanced networking driver |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Server 2025 | AWS NVMe latest version | ENA latest version |
| Windows Server 2022 | AWS NVMe latest version | ENA latest version |
| Windows Server 2019 | AWS NVMe latest version | ENA latest version |
| Windows Server 2016 | AWS NVMe latest version | ENA latest version |
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | AWS NVMe version 1.5.1 | ENA version 2.6.0 |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 | AWS NVMe version 1.3.2 | ENA version 2.2.3 |
The following table summarizes the supported drivers for Xen-based instances by Windows version.
| Version | Storage driver | Enhanced networking driver |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Server 2025 | AWS PV latest version |
|
| Windows Server 2022 | AWS PV latest version |
|
| Windows Server 2019 | AWS PV latest version |
|
| Windows Server 2016 | AWS PV latest version |
|
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | AWS PV version 8.4.3 |
|
| Windows Server 2008 R2 | AWS PV version 8.3.5 |
|
1 For instance types G3, H1, I3, m4.16xlarge, P2, P3, P3dn, and R4.
2 For instance types C3, C4, D2, I2, M4 (excluding m4.16xlarge), and R3.
3 For instance types C1, M1, M2, M3, T1, T2, X1, and X1e.
