As with the Mac, on Windows, you can also run Docker on Linux VMs using tools such as Vagrant and Docker Toolbox. Recently, Docker released a Beta version of Docker for Windows, which uses Hyper-V to virtualize the Docker Engine and Linux kernel-specific features that are essential to run the Docker Engine.

At the time of writing this book, Docker on Windows is supported only on 64-bit Windows 10 Enterprise and Education (1511 November update, Build 10586 or later). In the future, Docker will support more versions of Windows 10. Be aware that the Hyper-V package must be enabled.

It is always recommended that you use Docker native if you have a supported Windows 10 operating system. The following steps are required to install Docker on Windows:

1. Download the Docker for Windows installer from https://download.docker.com/win/beta/InstallDocker.msi.
2. Double-click on InstallDocker.msi; the installation wizard will start. It will ask for the Windows administrative password to complete the installation:

3. Docker starts automatically and the whale will appear in the status bar:

4. Finally, verify the Docker versions:

      $ docker --version
      Docker version 17.03.0-ce, build 60ccb22
      $ docker-compose --version
      docker-compose version 1.11.2, build dfed245
      $ docker-machine --version
      docker-machine version 0.10.0, build 76ed2a6

For other versions of Windows, you can install Docker Toolbox from https://docs.docker.com/toolbox/overview/. The Docker Toolbox runs Boot2Docker, a lightweight Linux VM on the Oracle VirtualBox hypervisor and installs the Docker Engine on top of it.