docker/docs/sources/installation/windows.md

page_title: Installation on Windows page_description: Docker installation on Microsoft Windows page_keywords: Docker, Docker documentation, Windows, requirements, virtualbox, boot2docker

Windows

Note: Docker is still under heavy development! We don't recommend using it in production yet, but we're getting closer with each release. Please see our blog post, Getting to Docker 1.0

Docker Engine runs on Windows using a lightweight virtual machine. There is no native Windows Docker client yet, so everything is done inside the virtual machine.

To make this process easier we designed a helper application called boot2docker to install the virtual machine and run the Docker daemon.

Installation

1. Download the latest release of the Docker for Windows Installer
2. Run the installer, which will install VirtualBox, MSYS-git, the boot2docker Linux ISO and the Boot2Docker management tool.
3. Run the Boot2Docker Start shell script from your Desktop or Program Files > Docker. The Start script will ask you to enter an ssh key passphrase - the simplest (but least secure) is to just hit [Enter].

The Boot2Docker Start script will connect you to a shell session in the virtual Machine. If needed, it will initialise a new VM and start it.

Upgrading

To upgrade:

1. Download the latest release of the Docker for Windows Installer
2. Run the installer, which will update the Boot2Docker management tool.
3. To upgrade your existing virtual machine, open a terminal and run:

        boot2docker stop
        boot2docker download
        boot2docker start

Running Docker

Boot2Docker will log you in automatically so you can start using Docker right away.

Let's try the “hello world” example. Run

$ docker run busybox echo hello world

This will download the small busybox image and print hello world.

Further Details

The Boot2Docker management tool provides some commands:

$ ./boot2docker
Usage: ./boot2docker [<options>] {help|init|up|ssh|save|down|poweroff|reset|restart|config|status|info|delete|download|version} [<args>]

For further information or to report issues, please see the Boot2Docker site