Posted On: Nov 7, 2023

Today, we announce the ability for customers to enable Windows Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to launch faster when the images are shared with them from another account. Prior to this, faster launching for Windows AMIs could only be enabled by the AMI owner, but now the recipient of the shared AMI can enable it as well and customize the parameters based on their need with a few simple actions. This feature is available in Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet, and Amazon Web Services China (Ningxia) Region, operated by NWCD.

To get started, you can configure faster launching for EC2 Windows AMIs from the AMI Management section of the Amazon EC2 Console, from the distribution settings in Amazon Image Builder console or via API/CLI commands. There is no additional service charge for enabling faster launching in your AMI. The underlying resources consumed for faster launching are largely the same as what are used in a standard launch other than storing the image snapshot used to launch faster.

Learn more from the Amazon EC2 Windows documentation section about configuring Microsoft Windows AMIs for faster launching. For more details on getting the best out of Amazon EC2 instances running Microsoft Windows Server OS check the guide on Amazon Windows AMI