Getting Started with Windows Containers

This chapter will cover the basics of using Windows Containers with Docker.

##Running Windows containers

First, make sure the Docker installation is working:

> docker version
Client:
 Version:      1.12.2
 API version:  1.24
 Go version:   go1.6.3
 Git commit:   bb80604
 Built:        Tue Oct 11 05:27:08 2016
 OS/Arch:      windows/amd64
 Experimental: true

Server:
 Version:      1.12.2-cs2-ws-beta
 API version:  1.25
 Go version:   go1.7.1
 Git commit:   050b611
 Built:        Tue Oct 11 02:35:40 2016
 OS/Arch:      windows/amd64

Next, pull a base image that’s compatible with the evaluation build, re-tag it and do a test-run:

docker pull microsoft/windowsservercore:10.0.14393.321
docker tag microsoft/windowsservercore:10.0.14393.321 microsoft/windowsservercore
docker run microsoft/windowsservercore hostname
69c7de26ea48

Building and pushing Windows container images

Pushing images to Docker Cloud requires a free Docker ID. Storing images on Docker Cloud is a great way to save build artifacts for later user, to share base images with co-workers or to create build-pipelines that move apps from development to production with Docker.

Docker images are typically built with docker build from a Dockerfile recipe, but for this example, we’re going to just create an image on the fly in PowerShell.

"FROM microsoft/windowsservercore `n CMD echo Hello World!" | docker build -t <docker-id>/windows-test-image -

Test the image:

docker run <docker-id>/windows-test-image
Hello World!

Login with docker login and then push the image:

docker push <docker-id>/windows-test-image

Images stored on Docker Cloud are available in the web interface and public images can be pulled by other Docker users in the Docker Store.