Windows launch agents on Amazon EC2 Windows instances

Each AWS Windows AMI 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. For information about a specific agent, see the detail pages in the following list.

For more information about AWS Windows AMIs, see the AWS Windows AMI reference.

• Use the EC2Launch v2 agent to perform tasks during EC2 Windows instance launch

• Use the EC2Launch v1 agent to perform tasks during EC2 Windows instance launch

• Use the EC2Config service to perform tasks during EC2 legacy Windows operating system instance launch

Content

• Compare Amazon EC2 launch agents

• Configure DNS Suffix for EC2 Windows launch agents

• Subscribe to EC2 Windows launch agent notifications

• Migrate to EC2Launch v2 for Windows instances

• Windows Service administration for EC2Launch v2 and EC2Config agents

Compare Amazon EC2 launch agents

The following table shows the major functional differences between EC2Config, EC2Launch v1, and EC2Launch v2.

Feature	EC2Config	EC2Launch v1	EC2Launch v2
Run as	Windows Service	PowerShell Scripts	Windows Service
Supports	Legacy OS only	Windows Server versions: 2016 2019 (LTSC and SAC)	Windows Server versions: 2016 2019 (LTSC and SAC) 2022 2025
Configuration file	XML	JSON	JSON/YAML
Set Administrator username	No	No	Yes
Compressed user data	No	No	Yes
Local user data baked on AMI	No	No	Yes, configurable
Task configuration in user data	No	No	Yes
Configurable wallpaper	No	No	Yes
Customize task run order	No	No	Yes
Configurable tasks	15	9	20 at launch
Supports Windows Event Viewer	Yes	No	Yes
Number of Event Viewer event types	2	0	30

Note

EC2Config documentation is provided for historical reference only. The operating system versions it runs on are no longer supported by Microsoft. We strongly recommend that you upgrade to the latest launch service.