How to Use AWS CLI on Windows PC

If you want more control over your AWS management and the ability to automate certain tasks to be faster, the CLI (command line interface) is a natural solution. While it does require a bit of learning the syntax and time getting used to, it’s much faster than the web client. And once you learn how to use AWS CLI on Windows PC, it’ll likely become one of your main shortcuts. Here’s a brief Windows AWS CLI guide to get you started.

Part 1 – Installing AWS CLI on Windows

AWS has a relatively simple installation process. While the installer comes with its own Python runtime in the most recent version, you’ll need to download Python separately from its website if you want to use the “legacy” AWS Version 1 and enable it on the PATH variable. Any version of Python will do since AWS supports 3.6, which is already obsolete.

Step 1. Go to AWS’s Documentation website and click on the download link for Windows.

Step 2. Open the downloaded file and go through the Setup Wizard. Accept the terms of the license agreement and go “Next.”

Step 3. Keep the storage setting to the default, click on “Next,” click on “Install,” then accept the User Account Control prompt when it pops up.

Step 4. Wait for the process to complete and click on “Finish.”

Alternatively, you can use the Command Prompt to get a similar result without going through the menus.

Step 1. Open the Command Prompt with administrator permissions (you can search for “cmd” and select the option from the menu). You’ll need to accept the UAC prompt.

Step 2. Paste in the following command and press “Enter.”

msiexec.exe /i https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi /qn

Note that the “qn” modifier at the end means this is a silent installation, and it provides no feedback on its success.

You can verify the installation version (and whether AWS was installed successfully) by opening Command Prompt and running the following command:

aws –version

You should see a result with the version similar to aws-cli/2.x.x Python/3.x.x Windows/11.

If you want to update AWS CLI, download a fresh file from the website or run the command-line installer again.

Part 2 – Adding an Access Key

Before you can actually use the CLI, you need to align it with your AWS account credentials.

Step 1. Open the AWS management console online and go to “IAM.”

Step 2. Select “Users,” then go to “Security credentials,” and click on “Create access key.”

Step 3. Save both keys listed on-screen externally (outside the browser), as closing the tab and reopening it will create new keys.

Step 4. Open the Command Prompt and run this command: aws configure

Step 5. You’ll be asked for four values, and will need to input or paste them:

• Access Key: the first value copied from the Access Key tab
• Secret Access Key: the second value from the management tab
• Region: the region where you want to create deployables. Users for the U.S. can use us-west-1, us-west-2, us-east-1, and us-east-2, but here’s a complete list of regions
• Output format: use “json” as the default, and “table” or “text” for a more graphical output

Step 6. Run a test command: aws s3 ls.

Part 3 – How to Use AWS CLI on Windows

Once installed, you can use AWS commands to do everything the web console can (and more). You can use Amazon’s guide for more complete information.