Installing Docker For Windows Beta

Containers are gathering pace these days and many more companies are moving their virtual machines to containers at a faster rate. Docker is built on top of Linux Containers(LXC) which has got it's own file system, storage, RAM and CPU.  One of the key differentiator with the Virtual Machines is that VM's emulate hardwares virtually, which itself consumes resources and comes down heavy on the underlying OS, but the advantage is that we can install any guest OS inside VM's. But with containers such as Docker it uses a shared OS which means that all the containers in a machine should have the same OS, advantage being that, by sharing it can utilize the resources more efficiently and will be light when comapred to virtual machines.

While celebrating their third birthday, Docker announced a beta program of Docker for Windows and Mac which contains an integrated environment for building, assembling and shipping applications for Mac and Windows. For more details, refer this excellent blog post by  announcing the release of the beta program for Windows and Mac.

This is a limited beta program from Docker and is not open to all. First you need to go to beta.docker.com and sign up using your Docker ID. Once you are successfully validated, you are redirected to a page where you can fill up the information as shown in the below screen grab.

When you click on the Submit button after filling up the info, you will be added to the waiting list. Docker will be sending out the invites in a rolling basis, so please be patient and do check your inbox periodically. You will also get a confirmation mail Docker saying that you got admitted to the beta program.

I got the invite after some time via email which had the link for downloading the Docker for Windows and Mac beta versions along with the token which is needed to complete the installation. 

When you click on the Get Docs and download the app, you will be redirected to a page which will have seperate links for downloading the installers for beta versions of Docker for Windows and Mac.

The installer for Docker for Windows is around 110 MB in size will take time depending upon the speed of your internet connection. Once the download is completed, click on the installer to start the installation. The first screen will show the License Agreement, click on the check box for accepting the terms. The install button will be enabled and click on it to start the installation process.

Since this is a beta version, the option for selecting the folder where it neeeds to be installed is not there. It will directly start the installation and will show the progress as shown in the below image.

When the installation is completed the below page will be shown, along with the option to the Launch Docker when we click on the Finish button.

While starting the Docker for the first time after the installation, you will be asked to enter token which you got in the invite mail from Docker. To start working, enter the token code and click on Submit button.

After successfull validation, you will notice that a blue whale icon in your system tray saying "Docker is initializing" and status will be changed to "Docker is running" in the tray if the initialization phase is completed successfully.

  

During the initializing phase, it will also automatically search for any available updates and it is advisable to apply the latest updates since we are running the beta program.

   

Clicking on the install will download the updates from Docker and will start installing it automatically by shutting down Docker if it's already running. 

For me, the installation was not that straight forward and ran in to many problems. So it took me some time to finally solve all the issues to make it running and will be blogging about that in the next post, so that it will help some one to save precious time.

Once again I would like to thank people at Docker for sending me the invite at the earliest which made this blog post possible. :)


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