Installing Docker on Windows

There are two editions of the Docker engine - the Enterprise Edition (EE) and the Community Edition (CE).

Docker Desktop for Windows, which is designed to be used on Windows 10/11 includes the Community Edition (CE). If you do not wish or want to use Docker Desktop for Windows, the "Docker Engine" itself can be installed. Some community-based package installers such as Chocolately provide an easy installation.

If you are using a server-based operating system, then Windows Server 2016/2022 provides a PowerShell package installer that installs the Enterprise Edition (EE) of Docker.

Installing Docker on Windows 10

Full information on installing Docker is contained in the Docker Desktop page on the Docker site.

Note:

You must enable Hyper-V in order to use Docker on Windows 10.
Once you have installed Docker you need to configure it to use Windows containers (rather than Linux containers, which is the default). To do this, ensure that Docker is running then right-click the Docker icon in your system tray and click Switch to Windows containers.

Installing Docker on Windows Server 2016

To install Docker Enterprise Edition on Windows Server 2016 use the following PowerShell commands:

Install-Module DockerMsftProvider -Force 
Install-Package Docker -ProviderName DockerMsftProvider -Force