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Recently Microsoft announced the new Windows Container Image to go along with the Windows Server Core and Nano Server container images. The reason we now have this new container image is that Microsoft has listened to customer feedback. With this new image, customers who are interested in moving legacy applications into containers are able to receive the benefits of container orchestration and management technologies like Kubernetes without the need of a code rewrite. With this new container image, you could also look at automated UI tests as part of your CI/CD processes.

The Current Microsoft Windows Container Base Images

As of writing this article Microsoft has 3 container images. Bellow is a list of the Windows Insiders Base Images. You need to be running the latest release of Windows 10 Insider Preview to be able to use them. Docker for Windows will also need to be installed. Read how to do this here.

mcr.microsoft.com/nanoserver-insider
mcr.microsoft.com/windowsservercore-insider
mcr.microsoft.com/windows-insider

How do you get it?

This bit is easy. Open up PowerShell and use the following command.

I know you should not always use the latest tag but its just easier than typing in the version number Microsoft has assigned to it.

How do you run it?

This also is easy. To run the Windows insider container, in the same PowerShell window type the following command. I am going to add PowerShell on to the end of the command, just so we have something to look at.

You will now be at a PowerShell prompt inside the container. Have a look around.

You can also use the container image to make your own images. For this you can use dockerfiles. I will hopefully go into dockerfiles in more detail in future posts.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions reach out in the usual methods.

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