Announcing the end of Windows Installer support for AWS Tools for Windows

Support for the AWS Tools for Windows Installer is ending on June 1, 2023 . After this date, no new versions of the installer will be created to deliver updated versions of the AWS tools. It is recommended to migrate away from the installer to the modern package management systems, such as NuGet and the PowerShell Gallery, to ensure you are staying up to date with the AWS tooling. Previously published releases of the MSI installer will continue to be available from the existing download link.

Amazon EC2 Windows AMIs will no longer have the MSI preinstalled and will no longer appear as installed in add/remove programs. The AWS Tools for PowerShell will continue to be available on the EC2 Windows AMIs.

The Windows installer for AWS Tools for Windows was first published in July 2013 to distribute AWS’s Windows tools including the AWS SDK for .NET, AWS Tools for PowerShell and AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio. At the time, package managers for .NET, PowerShell and Visual Studio extensions were not widely adopted by the community. Today NuGet, PowerShell Gallery and Visual Studio Marketplace have become the main locations to obtain these tools replacing the need for AWS to distribute a separate installer.

Customer can install the AWS SDK for .NET and AWS Tools for PowerShell from ZIP files if NuGet or PowerShell Gallery are not available for you. These ZIP files are updated as part of every AWS SDK for .NET and PowerShell release. Information on the SDK ZIP files can be found in the AWS SDK for .NET developer guide here. The AWS Tools for PowerShell user guide explains how to install the AWS modules with links for installing using the ZIP files. The Visual Studio Marketplace allows downloading the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio VSIX installer for installing the extension offline.