Windows desktop (XP, Vista or Win7) EC2 AMI for QA testing

Question

I need to perform QA testing for Windows based applications on a Windows desktop client and I would like to know if EC2 supports Windows images that are NOT server based (e.g. Server 2003). I have searched and found many posts that suggest that Amazon does not have desktop clients on their roadmap, but nothing definitive from Amazon themselves.

If EC2 does not support desktop installations of Windows, is there a service out that that does?

Thanks

Solution 1

I would suspect the answer will be no, because Amazon S3 has to use SPLA licensing for their windows installs and Desktop OS's are not available on SPLA. I would suggest some sort of local virtualisation and an MSDN licence.

Solution 2

Bit late to this, but google 'hens teeth cross browser' they provide community Windows AMIs but only in US east region.

Comments

[Ben Pilbrow]

Must it be in the cloud? Do you have any reasons to not use something like ESXi or VMWare Player?

[QWade]

No reason other than a slant towards a cloud based solution so I did not have to worry about licensing.

[QWade]

that is an option, I was just hoping for something in the cloud... thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

[Chopper3]

Please be aware that although I've done some digging and know this isn't spam it does look like it - we get dozens of brand new user accounts posting external links ever week and 95%+ are spammers - thought I'd let you know so you can be aware of our 'anti-spamm' mechanisms ok.

[Antonio]

Sounds like a good idea, but does not work in fact. The instance does not generate password.

[Lloyd Watkin]

Does not generate password not sure I understand what you mean here?

[Antonio]

I waited for 1 hour, but was not able to get a password to connect to the an instance using RDC

[Lloyd Watkin]

Manual says password is 'administrator' hens-teeth.net/html/products/cross_browser_testing.php