Running Docker on Windows

It's easy to install Docker on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. On these operating systems, you can use the Docker for Windows installer, which sets up all the prerequisites, deploys the latest version of Docker CE, and gives you some useful options to manage image repositories and remote swarms with Docker Cloud.

In production, you should ideally use Windows Server 2016 Core, the installation with no UI. This reduces the attack surface and the amount of Windows updates your server will need. If you move all your apps to Docker, you won't need any other Windows features installed; you'll just have Docker EE running as a Windows service.

I'll walk through both these installation options and show you a third option using a VM in Azure, which is useful if you want to try Docker but don't have access to Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016.