DOCKER - 4 Options for Windows

Hello everyone, and welcome to this introductory course to Docker. We are in the case where you are a Windows user and you want to be able to use Docker. Today we are going to talk about Windows. We will first see the two types of containers you can run on Windows. We will also talk about which edition of Docker you should install depending on your version of Windows. We will talk about the differences between Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 because these two versions treat Docker slightly differently. There are now two types of containers on Windows. We have the option of Linux containers, which until recently were just called containers because they were the only option. But now we also have Windows containers. Throughout this course, we will talk about Linux containers by default because being the oldest option, everything we know about containers is based on Linux. It should be noted that the concept remains the same regardless of the choice of container. The best version of Docker on Windows is Docker for Windows. This edition only works on Pro and Enterprise versions of Windows 10. If you have another version of Windows 10 or a version older than Windows, this edition will not work. In this case, you will need to use Docker Toolbox.
Windows Server 2016 also supports Windows Containers but we won't talk much about that for now. If you are on Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, you are one of the lucky ones who can launch Docker For Windows. You can get it at store.docker.com. This edition gives you access to more features than if you had installed a Linux VM on your machine. Docker For Windows and Docker Toolbox really help you develop and test things locally. In the background, Docker for Windows is actually running Hyper-V which uses a small Linux VM for Linux containers. If you are on Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise and have VirtualBox or VMware, they may not work with Hyper-V. If you want to use both, you will have to find a solution yourself on the Internet. There's also the option of simply switching to Hyper-V altogether. This edition natively uses PowerShell.
For older versions of Windows as well as Windows 10 Home, we therefore use a Docker toolbox. It's not as fancy as Docker for Windows, but it still works great. As with other editions, you can download it from store.Docker.com. This edition also runs a small Linux VM in the background but uses Virtual Box. It uses a command line called Docker Machine to manage this VirtualBox. In this machine which comes with the toolbox by default, it comes with a Bash shell called the Docker QuickStart terminal. These versions of Windows do not support Windows containers. They only support Linux containers through their small VMs. Finally, a note about Windows Server 2016. As said before, this version of Windows natively supports Windows containers without having to use Hyper-V. It also supports Docker for Windows, but it is mainly used for local development and testing on Windows server. Previous versions of Windows Server don't really support anything Docker related, although it is possible through Hyper-V to have a Linux VM that can run Docker, and therefore have Linux containers through it .
That's all for this video, but see you soon for the next one.