Troubleshoot issues with the EC2Config launch agent

To update EC2Config on an Amazon EBS-backed Windows instance that you can't connect to

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

3. Locate the affected instance. Select the instance and choose Instance state, and then choose Stop instance.

   Warning

   When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. To keep data from instance store volumes, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.

4. Choose Launch instances and create a temporary t2.micro instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance. Use a different AMI than the one that you used to launch the affected instance.

   Important

   If you do not create the instance in the same Availability Zone as the affected instance you will not be able to attach the root volume of the affected instance to the new instance.

5. In the EC2 console, choose Volumes.

6. Locate the root volume of the affected instance. Detach the volume and then attach the volume to the temporary instance that you created earlier. Attach it with the default device name (xvdf).

7. Use Remote Desktop to connect to the temporary instance, and then use the Disk Management utility to make the volume available for use.

8. Download the latest version of the EC2Config service. Extract the files from the .zip file to the Temp directory on the drive you attached.

9. On the temporary instance, open the Run dialog box, type regedit, and press Enter.

10. Choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. From the File menu, choose Load Hive. Choose the drive and then navigate to and open the following file: Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE. When prompted, specify a key name.

11. Select the key you just loaded and navigate to Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. Choose the RunOnce key. If this key doesn't exist, choose CurrentVersion from the context (right-click) menu, choose New and then choose Key. Name the key RunOnce.

12. From the context (right-click) menu choose the RunOnce key, choose New and then choose String Value. Enter Ec2Install as the name and C:\Temp\Ec2Install.exe /quiet as the data.

13. Choose the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\specified key name\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon key. From the context (right-click) menu choose New, and then choose String Value. Enter AutoAdminLogon as the name and 1 as the value data.

14. Choose the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\specified key name\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon> key. From the context (right-click) menu choose New, and then choose String Value. Enter DefaultUserName as the name and Administrator as the value data.

15. Choose the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\specified key name\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon key. From the context (right-click) menu choose New, and then choose String Value. Type DefaultPassword as the name and enter a password in the value data.

16. In the Registry Editor navigation pane, choose the temporary key that you created when you first opened Registry Editor.

17. From the File menu, choose Unload Hive.

18. In Disk Management Utility, choose the drive you attached earlier, open the context (right-click) menu, and choose Offline.

19. In the Amazon EC2 console, detach the affected volume from the temporary instance and reattach it to your instance with the device name /dev/sda1. You must specify this device name to designate the volume as a root volume.

20. Stop and start Amazon EC2 instances the instance.

21. After the instance starts, check the system log and verify that you see the message Windows is ready to use.

22. Open Registry Editor and choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Delete the String Value keys you created earlier: AutoAdminLogon, DefaultUserName, and DefaultPassword.

23. Delete or stop the temporary instance you created in this procedure.