Windows launch agents on Amazon EC2 Windows instances - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Windows launch agents on Amazon EC2 Windows instances

Each Amazon 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 Amazon Windows AMIs, see the Amazon Windows AMI reference.

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 2016

Windows 2019 (LTSC and SAC)

Windows 2016

Windows 2019 (LTSC and SAC)

Windows 2022

Configuration file

XML JSON JSON/YAML

Set Administrator username

No No

Yes

User data size

16 KB 16 KB

60 KB (compressed)

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EC2Config documentation is provided for historical reference only.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.