How do I retrieve my Windows administrator password after launching an instance?

Issue

How do I retrieve my Windows administrator password after launching an instance?

Resolution

You can retrieve your initial administrator password by using the Amazon EC2 console or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

To retrieve your initial administrator password by using the EC2 console:

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.
  2. Choose Instances.
  3. Select the instance, and from the Actions menu, choose Get Windows Password.
    Note: It may take a few minutes for this option to be available after first launching a new instance.
  4. Choose Browse, select your key pair file, and choose Open.
    -or-
    Paste the contents of your key pair into the provided text box.
  5. Choose Decrypt Password.

To retrieve the initial administrator password by using the AWS CLI (note: this requires that you have installed the AWS CLI), use the get-password-data command. For example syntax, see Examples.

Keywords

Windows, administrator, admin, password, CLI, local

Getting Started with Amazon EC2 Windows Instances
Connecting to Your Windows Instance Using RDP
I need to reset the administrator password on a Windows Server instance in Amazon EC2

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Published: 2016-08-16