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Dockerizing Windows Applications

Published 2017-03-13 by Kevin Feasel

Elton Stoneman has a five-step process for turning your Windows app into a containerized application:

1. Choose Your Base Image

Docker images for Windows apps need to be based on microsoft/nanoserver or microsoft/windowsservercore, or on another image based on one of those.

Which you use will depend on the application platform, runtime, and installation requirements. For any of the following you need Windows Server Core:

  • .NET Framework apps
  • MSI installers for apps or dependencies
  • 32-bit runtime support

For anything else, you should be able to use Nano Server. I’ve successfully used Nano Server as the base image for Go, Java and Node.js apps.

This is good reading if you’re thinking of offering a containerized version of your product.

Published in Containers