Windows Server "Password is not available"

Question

I followed the guide for [EC2 Windows Instances](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/EC2_GetStarted.html) and got a "Password is not available" error when trying to get the password to connect to the instance. I used the official Amazon AMI for Windows Server 2016 Base with t2.micro (as specified in the guide).

The error says:
> Password is not available.
The instance was launched from a custom AMI, or the default password has changed. A password cannot be retrieved for this instance. If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it using the Amazon EC2 configuration service.

I am confused, as I used the official AMI from Amazon and I didn't change the password (I can't even connect to the instance).

How do I resolve this issue and connect to the instance?

Accepted Answer

It turns out the issue was that I was using an ED25519 key pair, but only RSA key pairs are supported for Windows machine. This ought to be specified somewhere.

Answer

This is documented here:  https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html

As you can see in the docs, it only specifies RSA for Windows instance. For Linux instances you can use RSA and ED25519 key pairs.

Windows Server "Password is not available"

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