Overview

Amazon EC2 running Microsoft Windows Server is a fast and dependable environment for deploying applications using the Microsoft Web Platform. Amazon EC2 enables you to run any compatible Windows-based solution on AWS' high-performance, reliable, cost-effective, cloud computing platform. Common Windows use cases include Enterprise Windows-based application hosting, website and web-service hosting, data processing, media transcoding, distributed testing, ASP.NET application hosting, and any other application requiring Windows software.

Highlights

Amazon EC2 makes it easy to start and manage your Windows-based instances.

Details

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Amazon Web Services

Features and programs

Financing for AWS Marketplace purchases

AWS Marketplace now accepts line of credit payments through the PNC Vendor Finance program. This program is available to select AWS customers in the US, excluding NV, NC, ND, TN, & VT.

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Pricing

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Core

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This product is free. Subscriptions have no end date and can be canceled anytime.

Additional AWS infrastructure costs may apply. Use the AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate your infrastructure costs.

Additional AWS infrastructure costs

Type	Cost
EBS General Purpose SSD (gp2) volumes	$0.10/per GB/month of provisioned storage

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Usage information

Info

Delivery details

64-bit (x86) Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

An AMI is a virtual image that provides the information required to launch an instance. Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances are virtual servers on which you can run your applications and workloads, offering varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking resources. You can launch as many instances from as many different AMIs as you need.

Version release notes

Changes:

AWSPowerShell v4.1.694
AWS NVMe v1.6.0
cfn-init v2.0.31
EC2 Launch v1.3.2005065
SSM v3.3.1230.0
Windows Security Updates current to November 12th 2024

Additional details

Usage instructions

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/finding-an-ami.html

Resources

Vendor resources

Windows and .Net Developer Center

Microsoft License Mobility

Support

Vendor support

Free support is available through forums, technical documentation, and tutorials. Paid support is available.

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AWS infrastructure support

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Customer reviews

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Ratings and reviews

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4 AWS reviews

3 external reviews

External reviews are sourced from G2 and are not included in the star rating for this product.

Mohit V.

Reduced footprint with increased productivity

Reviewed on Aug 16, 2023

Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?

Windows Server 2016 Core, a streamlined variant of the Windows Server OS, offering several benefits compared to the GUI installation. A notable advantage is its reduced attack surface: by fewer components and services, it diminishes the potential entry points for cyber threats.

What do you dislike about the product?

No GUI: Windows Server Core lacks a graphical interface, complicating tasks for GUI-oriented admins.
Learning Curve: Requires command-line expertise, a challenge for novices.
Setup Complexity is another challenge.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

This inherently enhances security, making it particularly valuable for internet-facing servers. Furthermore, the leaner design contributes to reduced maintenance demands. The need for updates and patches is minimized, simplifying the patching process and decreasing downtime.

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Hospital & Health Care

As Windows admin and user in Production environment, I can share my feedback

Reviewed on Nov 17, 2021

Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?

It's has updated powershell versions and also in Hyper v Microsoft included the Hot add options. And also in Pam facilities and also Refs file system

What do you dislike about the product?

Nothing much in windows server 2016, after 2008 server all server operating system are good but version wise it has different futures

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Core usage is less in organization but still we faced basic issues like ii's prerequisites and dot net issues but those are not manjor issues we noticed for our production

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Program Development

nice service for big companies

Reviewed on Oct 12, 2021

Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?

i love Active directory because that is a very big tool that allows the use a lot of applications with it and login to the app via AD credentials. not only that it is helping when you have a print server and etc...you can manage all users via AD and give accordingly permission to use their instance

What do you dislike about the product?

we need patch it very often that is not good buy we must for security reasson

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

many problems with SSO and other applications and regarding users as well

Recommendations to others considering the product:

sure that is must OS if you have a normal company and need administer all users

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Tyler P

Many odd issues something is amiss

Reviewed on Aug 02, 2018

Purchase verified by AWS

Wanted to use as a platform for ArcGIS Server. Lots of issues during setup that were not present on other 2016 images.

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Jorge

Unstable image

Reviewed on May 09, 2018

Purchase verified by AWS

A Core with a 30GB size isn't a Core.

There are problems for install some applications. For example, a message of "Couldn't load XPCOM" appears when try to execute Firefox.

Sensation of not reliability for productions environments.

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