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I have some general Qs on my mind about Windows on EC2:

  • Don't Windows servers normally have a key/license written somewhere into them, in which case can I not extract this (legitimate) license using a hacking tool and use it back in my own office environment?
  • The new Micro instances are cool. But are they sufficient for running Windows, considering that it is typically quite the memory hog (and isn't the minimum recommended memory for Wind2k8 something like 2GB anyway)?
  • What's taking Windows so long to load on EC2? Any way to speed it up?
  • It's generally best to ask each question separately. This will make it much easier for the community to vote on answers (and more likely to post answers). – Kara Marfia Sep 14 '10 at 18:41

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I'll bite anyway:

  • You probably could extract the licenses from a Windows EC2 instance if you really wanted to, since pretty much all software licenses are crackable. Of course, this would be illegal.
  • I don't think I would run Windows on a micro instance, especially as Amazon currently only offers Windows Server versions. If you want a cheap Windows instance, I'd recommend going with a small instance and using spot pricing or reserved instances to keep the cost down.
  • You can't do a lot to speed up Windows loading on EC2, apart from cutting out all of the services you don't need on startup. Windows instances actually have to boot twice to become fully operational - this is related to network configuration that requires a reboot on Windows. There are some tweaks you can do that might help; see this SF question.
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