Run Amazon EC2 AMI in Windows

Question

Is there a way to run an Amazon EC2 AMI image in Windows? I'd like to be able to do some testing and configuration locally. I'm looking for something like Virtual PC.

Answer 1

If you are creating your AMI from scratch, you can do it with VMware. but if you want to use an existing AMI, it will be a little tricky. You will have to download and unpack an AMI into a VM image, then add a kernel then boot it.

Note: AMIs might be encrypted.