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Windows inside a Docker container.

• ISO downloader
• KVM acceleration
• Web-based viewer

services:windows:image:dockurr/windowscontainer_name:windowsenvironment:VERSION:"11"devices:      -/dev/kvm      -/dev/net/tuncap_add:      -NET_ADMINports:      -8006:8006      -3389:3389/tcp      -3389:3389/udpvolumes:      -./windows:/storagerestart:alwaysstop_grace_period:2m

docker run -it --rm --name windows -e"VERSION=11" -p 8006:8006 --device=/dev/kvm --device=/dev/net/tun --cap-add NET_ADMIN -v"${PWD:-.}/windows:/storage" --stop-timeout 120 docker.io/dockurr/windows

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dockur/windows/refs/heads/master/kubernetes.yml

Very simple! These are the steps:

• Start the container and connect toport 8006 using your web browser.

• Sit back and relax while the magic happens, the whole installation will be performed fully automatic.

• Once you see the desktop, your Windows installation is ready for use.

Enjoy your brand new machine, and don't forget to star this repo!

By default, Windows 11 Pro will be installed. But you can add theVERSION environment variable to your compose file, in order to specify an alternative Windows version to be downloaded:

environment:VERSION:"11"

Select from the values below:

To change the storage location, include the following bind mount in your compose file:

volumes:  -./windows:/storage

Replace the example path./windows with the desired storage folder or named volume.

To expand the default size of 64 GB, add theDISK_SIZE setting to your compose file and set it to your preferred capacity:

environment:DISK_SIZE:"256G"

After installation there will be a folder calledShared on your desktop, which can be used to exchange files with the host machine.

To select a folder on the host for this purpose, include the following bind mount in your compose file:

volumes:  -./example:/shared

Replace the example path./example with your desired shared folder, which then will become visible asShared.

By default, Windows will be allowed to use 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of RAM.

If you want to adjust this, you can specify the desired amount using the following environment variables:

environment:RAM_SIZE:"8G"CPU_CORES:"4"

By default, a user calledDocker is created and its password isadmin.

If you want to use different credentials during installation, you can configure them in your compose file:

environment:USERNAME:"bill"PASSWORD:"gates"

By default, the English version of Windows will be downloaded.

But you can add theLANGUAGE environment variable to your compose file, in order to specify an alternative language to be downloaded:

environment:LANGUAGE:"French"

You can choose between: 🇦🇪 Arabic, 🇧🇬 Bulgarian, 🇨🇳 Chinese, 🇭🇷 Croatian, 🇨🇿 Czech, 🇩🇰 Danish, 🇳🇱 Dutch, 🇬🇧 English, 🇪🇪 Estonian, 🇫🇮 Finnish, 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇬🇷 Greek, 🇮🇱 Hebrew, 🇭🇺 Hungarian, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇱🇻 Latvian, 🇱🇹 Lithuanian, 🇳🇴 Norwegian, 🇵🇱 Polish, 🇵🇹 Portuguese, 🇷🇴 Romanian, 🇷🇺 Russian, 🇷🇸 Serbian, 🇸🇰 Slovak, 🇸🇮 Slovenian, 🇪🇸 Spanish, 🇸🇪 Swedish, 🇹🇭 Thai, 🇹🇷 Turkish and 🇺🇦 Ukrainian.

If you want to use a keyboard layout or locale that is not the default for your selected language, you can addKEYBOARD andREGION variables like this:

environment:REGION:"en-US"KEYBOARD:"en-US"

In order to download an unsupported ISO image, specify its URL in theVERSION environment variable:

environment:VERSION:"https://example.com/win.iso"

Alternatively, you can also skip the download and use a local file instead, by binding it in your compose file in this way:

volumes:  -./example.iso:/boot.iso

Replace the example path./example.iso with the filename of your desired ISO file. The value ofVERSION will be ignored in this case.

To run your own script after installation, you can create a file calledinstall.bat and place it in a folder together with any additional files it needs (software to be installed for example).

Then bind that folder in your compose file like this:

volumes:  -./example:/oem

The example folder./example will be copied toC:\OEM and the containinginstall.bat will be executed during the last step of the automatic installation.

It's recommended to stick to the automatic installation, as it adjusts various settings to prevent common issues when running Windows inside a virtual environment.

However, if you insist on performing the installation manually at your own risk, add the following environment variable to your compose file:

environment:MANUAL:"Y"

The web-viewer is mainly meant to be used during installation, as its picture quality is low, and it has no audio or clipboard for example.

So for a better experience you can connect using any Microsoft Remote Desktop client to the IP of the container, using the usernameDocker and passwordadmin.

There is a RDP client forAndroid available from the Play Store and one foriOS in the Apple Store. For Linux you can useFreeRDP and on Windows just typemstsc in the search box.

By default, the container uses bridge networking, which shares the IP address with the host.

If you want to assign an individual IP address to the container, you can create a macvlan network as follows:

docker network create -d macvlan \    --subnet=192.168.0.0/24 \    --gateway=192.168.0.1 \    --ip-range=192.168.0.100/28 \    -o parent=eth0 vlan

Be sure to modify these values to match your local subnet.

Once you have created the network, change your compose file to look as follows:

services:windows:container_name:windows..<snip>..networks:vlan:ipv4_address:192.168.0.100networks:vlan:external:true

An added benefit of this approach is that you won't have to perform any port mapping anymore, since all ports will be exposed by default.

After configuring the container formacvlan, it is possible for Windows to become part of your home network by requesting an IP from your router, just like a real PC.

To enable this mode, in which the container and Windows will have separate IP addresses, add the following lines to your compose file:

environment:DHCP:"Y"devices:  -/dev/vhost-netdevice_cgroup_rules:  -'c *:* rwm'

To create additional disks, modify your compose file like this:

environment:DISK2_SIZE:"32G"DISK3_SIZE:"64G"volumes:  -./example2:/storage2  -./example3:/storage3

It is possible to pass-through disk devices or partitions directly by adding them to your compose file in this way:

devices:  -/dev/sdb:/disk1  -/dev/sdc1:/disk2

Use/disk1 if you want it to become your main drive (which will be formatted during installation), and use/disk2 and higher to add them as secondary drives (which will stay untouched).

To pass-through a USB device, first lookup its vendor and product id via thelsusb command, then add them to your compose file like this:

environment:ARGUMENTS:"-device usb-host,vendorid=0x1234,productid=0x1234"devices:  -/dev/bus/usb

If the device is a USB disk drive, please wait until after the installation is fully completed before connecting it. Otherwise the installation may fail, as the order of the disks can get rearranged.

First check if your software is compatible using this chart:

After that you can run the following commands in Linux to check your system:

sudo apt install cpu-checkersudo kvm-ok

If you receive an error fromkvm-ok indicating that KVM cannot be used, please check whether:

• the virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x orAMD SVM) are enabled in your BIOS.

• you enabled "nested virtualization" if you are running the container inside a virtual machine.

• you are not using a cloud provider, as most of them do not allow nested virtualization for their VPS's.

If you did not receive any error fromkvm-ok but the container still complains about a missing KVM device, it could help to addprivileged: true to your compose file (orsudo to yourdocker command) to rule out any permission issue.

You can usedockur/macos for that. It shares many of the same features, except for the automatic installation.

You can useqemus/qemu in that case.

Yes, this project contains only open-source code and does not distribute any copyrighted material. Any product keys found in the code are just generic placeholders provided by Microsoft for trial purposes. So under all applicable laws, this project will be considered legal.

The product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks referred to within this project are the property of their respective trademark holders. This project is not affiliated, sponsored, or endorsed by Microsoft Corporation.