Manually installing and uninstalling SSM Agent on EC2 instances for Windows Server

AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) is preinstalled, by default, on the following Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for Windows Server provided by Amazon:

• Windows Server 2012 R2 AMIs published in November 2016 or later

• Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022 (excluding Nano versions), and 2025

Important

We strongly recommend that you avoid using OS versions that have reached End-of-Life (EOL). OS vendors including AWS typically don't provide security patches or other updates for versions that have reached EOL. Continuing to use an EOL system greatly increases the risk of not being able to apply upgrades, including security fixes, and other operational problems. AWS does not test Systems Manager functionality on OS versions that have reached EOL.

Install SSM Agent on EC2 instances for Windows Server

If necessary, you can manually download and install the latest version of SSM Agent on your Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance for Windows Server by using the following procedure. The commands provided in this procedure can also be passed to Amazon EC2 instances as scripts through user data.

SSM Agent requires Windows PowerShell 3.0 or later to run certain AWS Systems Manager documents (SSM documents) on Windows Server instances (for example, the legacy AWS-ApplyPatchBaseline document). Verify that your Windows Server instances are running Windows Management Framework 3.0 or later. This framework includes Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Windows Management Framework 3.0.

Installation on other machine types

This procedure in this topic applies specifically to installing or reinstalling SSM Agent on an EC2 instance for Windows Server. For on-premises servers, virtual machines, or other non-EC2 environments, use the ssm-setup-cli tool as described in Install SSM Agent on hybrid Windows Server nodes.

Using EC2 installation procedures on non-EC2 systems can potentially result in security vulnerabilities. The ssm-setup-cli tool provides additional security protections for non-EC2 machines.

To manually install the latest version of SSM Agent on EC2 instances for Windows Server

1. Connect to your instance by using Remote Desktop or Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Connect to your instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

2. Download the latest version of SSM Agent to your instance. You can download using either PowerShell commands or a direct download link.

   Note

   The URLs in this step let you download SSM Agent from any AWS Region. If you want to download the agent from a specific Region, use a Region-specific URL instead:

   https://amazon-ssm-region.s3.region.amazonaws.com/latest/windows_amd64/AmazonSSMAgentSetup.exe

   region represents the identifier for an AWS Region supported by AWS Systems Manager, such as us-east-2 for the US East (Ohio) Region. For a list of supported region values, see the Region column in Systems Manager service endpoints in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

   PowerShell

   Run the following three PowerShell commands in order. These commands allow you to download SSM Agent without adjusting Internet Explorer (IE) Enhanced Security settings, and then install the agent and remove the installation file.

   64-bit

   [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 'TLS12'
   $progressPreference = 'silentlyContinue'
   Invoke-WebRequest `
       https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/windows_amd64/AmazonSSMAgentSetup.exe `
       -OutFile $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\SSMAgent_latest.exe

   32-bit

   [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 'TLS12'
   $progressPreference = 'silentlyContinue'
   Invoke-WebRequest `
       https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/windows_386/AmazonSSMAgentSetup.exe `
       -OutFile $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\SSMAgent_latest.exe

   Start-Process `
       -FilePath $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\SSMAgent_latest.exe `
       -ArgumentList "/S" `
       -Wait

   rm -Force $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\SSMAgent_latest.exe

   Direct download

   Download the latest version of SSM Agent to your instance by using the following link. If you want, update this URL with an AWS Region-specific URL.

   https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/windows_amd64/AmazonSSMAgentSetup.exe

   Run the downloaded AmazonSSMAgentSetup.exe file to install SSM Agent.

3. Start or restart SSM Agent by sending the following command in PowerShell:

   Restart-Service AmazonSSMAgent

Note

To uninstall the SSM Agent from a Windows Server instance, open Control Panel, Programs. Choose the Uninstall a program option. Open the context (right-click) menu for Amazon SSM Agent and choose Uninstall.