We are specifically interested in Amazon EC2.

We can do the following within the

free introduction period:
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
- 750 hours of Amazon EC2 Linux Micro Instance usage (613 MB of memory and 32-bit
and 64-bit platform support) enough hours to run continuously each month*
- 750 hours of Amazon EC2 Microsoft Windows Server Micro Instance usage (613 MB of
memory and 32-bit and 64-bit platform support) enough hours to run continuously ea
ch month*
- 750 hours of an Elastic Load Balancer plus 15 GB data processing*
- 30 GB of Amazon Elastic Block Storage, plus 2 million I/Os and 1 GB of snapsho
t storage*
All that is required is an Amazon account that has never signed up for AWS. Most
people do not know this service exists.
Once you are registered you may access the console here -https://console.aws.amazon.com/console/home
You are met with the entire list of AWS product offerings. We are only intereste
d in EC2.
You may create server instances in the following regions, or, as Amazon calls th
em, Availability Zones-US East (Northern Virginia) Region us-east-1
US West (Oregon) Region us-west-2
US West (Northern California) Region us-west-1
EU (Ireland) Region eu-west-1
Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region
Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region ap-southeast-2
Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region ap-northeast-1
South America (Sao Paulo) Region sa-east-1
Not all AZs have instances available for the free usage tier
Within the main EC2 dashboard you will see a large blue button for "Launch Insta
nce". This is where we are going to configure and launch our Windows Server.
Choose the following towards the bottom of the list of Operating Systems -Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Datacenter edition, 64-bit architecture. [English]
You will see that it is marked as "free tier eligible". Select this instance and
confirm it as t1.micro so we are launched within the free usage tier.
We are reminded again by Amazon that will not be charged for this instance-

Micro instances are eligible for the AWS free usage tier. For the first 12 month
s following your AWS sign-up date, you get up to 750 hours of micro instances ea
ch month. When your free usage tier expires or if your usage exceeds the free ti
er restrictions, you pay standard, pay-as-you-go service rates.
Most people can simply click review and launch. You don't need a VPC just for RD
P hosts. Those who want to use VPN tunnels will need to create at least one VPC.
You'll know if you are one of them. Changes are that you are not. smile
Check that port 3389 is open for RDP on the security group settings and you're f
ine. You will need to create a key pair to decrypt your password for the initial
connection. (or not, it's up to you) Follow the directions on the key pair crea
tion screen and be sure to save it locally somewhere safe.
A key pair consists of a public key that AWS stores, and a private key file that
you store. Together, they allow you to connect to your instance securely. For W
indows AMIs, the private key file is required to obtain the password used to log
into your instance. For Linux AMIs, the private key file allows you to securely
SSH into your instance.
So you need the key pair to decrypt your Windows Admin password for the first co
nnection or to use with SSH as either .pem or .ppk.
Confirm everything again and click launch. Give you instance about 30-40 minutes
to spool up completely. Virtual Windows environments can be tricky the first ti
me. If you are having seemingly weirdo issues with no explanation, just blow awa
y your instance and create a new one. Remember the free usage tier is based on a
collective number, not single instances.
When you instance shows the green indicator mark and you see it is running, choo
se connect. Enter the key that you just created to decrypt your Windows Admin pa
ssword. Copy your credentials into Notepad. ---Open Remote Desktop-Start -> Run > mstsc
Enter your credentials and choose to save the file on your desktop.
Now you have a shortcut directly to your RDP in EC2!
Create as many as you want, all around the world, just stay within 750 hours.