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Microsofties, rejoice: The Docker client for managing containers comes to Windows

Image Credit: Docker

Congratulations, Windows developers. Now you, too, can run the hip Docker client and manage applications in the form of “containers” right from your Windows desktop computer.

That’s because Microsoft engineers have been working hard to bring the container functionality — an alternative to virtual machines that package up application code and run on a physical server — to the Windows environment. The latest manifestation of that effort comes in the form of a command-line interface (CLI) tool for running the trendy open-source Docker software.

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“Up till today you could only use Linux-based client CLI to manage your Docker container deployments or use boot2docker to set up a virtualized development environment in a Windows client machine,” Khalid Mouss, senior program manager for the Azure compute runtime at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post announcing the news. “Today, with a Windows CLI you can manage your Docker hosts wherever they are directly from your Windows Clients.”

The work to develop a Docker client for Windows desktops arose from a pull request in the GitHub repository for the Docker project. The fact that this work happened out in the open on GitHub and not in some internal Microsoft bubble is new proof of Microsoft’s commitment to working with open-source technology.

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Microsoft has also been working on bringing Docker capability to the Azure cloud and the Windows Server operating system for servers.

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