All Products
Search

This Product

    Elastic Compute Service:What do I do if the interface that appears on your logon to a Windows instance is abnormal?

    Document Center

    Elastic Compute Service:What do I do if the interface that appears on your logon to a Windows instance is abnormal?

    Last Updated:Apr 23, 2023

    This topic describes the causes of and solutions to the following issue: The interface that appears on your logon to a Windows Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance is abnormal.

    What do I do if the start menu instead of the system desktop appears on my logon to a Windows instance?

    Problem description

    When you log on to a Windows instance, the start menu instead of the system desktop appears.

    Note

    In this example, an instance that runs Windows Server 2012 is used.

    Cause

    When you log on to a Windows instance or close an application, the start menu instead of the system desktop appears.

    Solution

    1. Connect to the Windows instance.

      For more information, see Connect to a Windows instance by using a password.

    2. Press the Windows key + R, enter regedit, and then click OK to open the Registry Editor window.

    3. Find the AlternateShells folder by using the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\AlternateShells path.

    4. Double-click DefaultShell and then change the default numeric data to explorer.exe.

    What do I do if a black screen that contains only a command prompt appears on my logon to a Windows instance?

    Problem description

    When you log on to a Windows instance, a black screen that contains only a command prompt is displayed.

    Note

    In this example, an instance that runs Windows Server 2012 is used.

    Cause

    You selected the core mode when you installed Windows Server 2012. The GUI is not fully loaded.

    Solutions

    Two solutions are available. We recommend solution 2 because data loss may occur due to operating system changes involved in solution 1.

    Solution 1

    Replace the operating system by selecting an image with a GUI. For more information, see Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.

    Note

    • After the operating system is replaced, the original system disk is released and all data stored on the disk is cleared. Before you replace the operating system of an instance, we recommend that you create a snapshot of the system disk to back up data. For more information, see Create a snapshot of a disk.

    • For more formation about images with a GUI, see the "Which operating systems support visualization?" question in the FAQ section of the Replace the operating system of an instance topic.

    Solution 2

    1. Connect to the Windows instance.

      For more information, see Connect to a Windows instance by using a password or key.

    2. To switch from the Command Prompt window to a GUI, run the following command to switch from the core mode to the full mode: 

      dism /online /enable-feature /all /featurename:servercore-fullserver /featurename:server-gui-shell /featurename:server-gui-mgmt