How to enable Enhanced Networking Adapter (ENA) on Windows

Most times when you increase or change the instance type of a server on AWS, the Network adapter changes and this can cause system related issues

Here are steps for installing the ENA Driver:

• Install the driver for the operating system from this link. http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/enhanced-networking-ena.html
  Locate the Operating system relevant to you. This can be selected by clicking on the relevant operating system as shown below.

• Moreover, Copy this to the browser of the Instance where you wish to install the Network Adapter into. This will automatically download the zip file containing the ENA network adapter

• Nonetheless, Open the command prompt (CLI) and navigate to the folder containing the path and run the command below.
  

 pnputil -i -aena.inf

The output will be as follow below

Output success would be
Microsoft PnP Utility
                                
Processing inf :            ena.inf 
Succesfully installed the driver on a device on the system.
Driver package added successfully.
Published name :            oem9.inf
                            
Total attempted:                 1                            
Number successfully imported:    1

• Next stop the instance (server) by shutting it down
• Furthermore, Enable ENA support on the instance.
  • Run this command below
    Note: (This step has to be done from your local computer) and NOT on on the instance itself).
  • Open the command prompt (CLI) on you local machine (work station) and type in aws configure
  • Now follow the prompt (instruction) by entering your keys and region where the instance is located.
    
    Modifying the instance Attribute (AWS-CLI)


aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id Replacethiswith theinstance_id --ena-support

However, The next step would be to describe the instance to ensure the ENA (Enhanced Networking Adapter) is installed.

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids Replacethiswith theinstance_id --query "Reservations[].Instances[].EnaSupport"