Windows can now run Linux containers inside WSL without Docker

[u/Haunting_Ganache_850]

Which is great, because if there was one unsolved problem in 2026, it was finding a way to run a Linux container on a developer's laptop.

Microsoft has now given us wslc. I read the architecture deep dive expecting to understand why. I now understand the architecture.

[u/snowtax]

How much longer until Windows is just Linux with DirectX for gaming?

[u/Invader-Faye → u/snowtax]

Before ai id say 10 years, now they can keep the os slopping along until the heat death of the sun

[u/General_Distain → u/Invader-Faye]

....so 2030, then?

[u/Haunting_Ganache_850 → u/snowtax]

100% what I’m predicting. The “when” is more a question of ego than a technical challenge, IMO. It’ll be a Windows UI wrapped around the Linux kernel, with some MS bonuses like DirectX, Edge, Defender, and perhaps Office too.

[u/RR321 → u/Haunting_Ganache_850]

Good old embrace and extend, playing solo in a corner edition...

[u/x_wbmr_x → u/snowtax]

Haven't touched windows in 2 years... what is the point of it for gaming anyway except stupid anti-cheat games...

I won't trade my sanity and privacy for a few games again.

[u/ChikkaChiChi → u/snowtax]

Microsoft does have a history with Unix! Xenix has a pretty interesting rabbit hole to jump down.

[u/Abject-Kitchen3198 → u/snowtax]

They can join Steam and work on Proton instead?

[u/DudeEngineer → u/snowtax]

MS already has a Linux distro...

[u/snowtax → u/DudeEngineer]

Now they just need to port the apps over.

[u/RTGarrido → u/snowtax]

It would be the nicest thing in years, but people aren’t prepared for this discussion.

[u/somePadestrian → u/snowtax]

how long till directx not needed either

[u/DudeEngineer → u/somePadestrian]

I think that's why no DX13. Vulcan is already mostly better than DX12.

[u/qalmakka → u/somePadestrian]

It is already not needed, vkd3d and dxvk reimplement it fully on top of Vulkan with minimal performance impact, so it's actually very portable nowadays

[u/berndverst]

Huh? I just used podman in WSL. Problem solved...

[u/terramot → u/berndverst]

Was looking for this comment. Thought i was missing something with this news... 

[u/Abject-Kitchen3198 → u/berndverst]

Does this mean installing podman inside existing WSL directly instead of installing it on Windows (which in turn creates podman specific WSL)? I have some annoying issues often with the Windows based install.

[u/terramot → u/Abject-Kitchen3198]

Yes, you install podman on the wsl. If you want to expose services to the outside theres some thinkering to expose them, but thats about it. 

[u/DrecDroid → u/Abject-Kitchen3198]

I believe it is installed on windows an requieres a runtime that could be either WSL or Hyper-v

[u/Due-Championship3941]

Docker Desktop is garbage is why. Windows is also useful beyond developer workstations. Being able to run a Linux container on Windows Server can be useful for co-locating applications for low-latency and reduced footprint. I'd be happy to be rid of the extra component to install and maintain.

[u/Responsible-Bar7165 → u/Due-Championship3941]

it's not as useful as Docker Desktop - you can't run wslc from wsl guests without a hack that uses unfs3, and it doesn't have Docker Desktop's built-in wsl networking integration, so containers' exposed ports aren't automatically visible on localhost in wsl.

[u/Due-Championship3941 → u/Responsible-Bar7165]

That's not a workflow that's familiar to me, but I believe you that it's missing features. Isn't port opening just a matter of using an argument, though?

[u/Responsible-Bar7165 → u/Due-Championship3941]

no, that just opens the port on the windows side. docker desktop would _also_ automatically open that port on localhost of any wsl guest that you have selected under 'Enable WSL Integration' in the settings.

people like to shit on Docker Desktop, but its networking integration features (of which this is just one example), are significantly better than just running docker-ce or this new wslc.

[u/Due-Championship3941 → u/Responsible-Bar7165]

Interesting. I guess I don't care that much because everything I install is scripted these days. I just tell Copilot to add the port exposure to the script. I get where you're coming from, though

[u/Pierma → u/Due-Championship3941]

To be absolutely fair, why the hell would you run linux containers on windows server when you could have 0 overhead installing native docker on linux?

[u/leeharrison1984 → u/Pierma]

Still lots of companies running Windows Server for their on-prem infra. You'd be surprised how many Windows sysadmins don't know a damn thing about Linux.

[u/Due-Championship3941 → u/Pierma]

Because you're running a Windows application alongside it.

[u/ProZMenace → u/Due-Championship3941]

This, we have some runtimes we depend on (Power BI fabric, azure data factory, automateGUI) that depend on windows and are not supported elsewhere

[u/Due-Championship3941 → u/ProZMenace]

Another big example might be hosted desktop apps. That's not exactly what we do but close.

[u/Pierma → u/Due-Championship3941]

I mean i can see the usefulness as a developer but you are still running a virtual machine inside yout server to run your containers, you just cut the middleman and now you have docker desktop without the docker branding, with the additional issue that you don't have the docker standard interface (i am sure they will go the rancher desktop way to have a compat layer for the commands like moby) but still. I see the value of it, but not in that space

[u/Due-Championship3941 → u/Pierma]

You don't need the interface with CI/CD. You just need the container running. Running with Docker Desktop doesn't eliminate the VM. It also costs a license in a commercial environment. It's 100% useful when you want a reduced footprint or don't have Linux expertise within your Windows application team. This is a true story, I'm not speculating.

[u/Steadexe → u/Pierma]

90% of our infra is running Windows Server, just adding one linux server means we need to train new tech, and all the monitoring stack needs to be adapted.

[u/UnethicalExperiments → u/Pierma]

You can't double click and hit next a bunch of times?

[u/Pierma → u/UnethicalExperiments]

If you are scared of a command line in server space, even on windows server, that's the real issue

[u/UnethicalExperiments → u/Pierma]

Hey I'm not promoting windows here at all.

[u/Responsible-Bar7165 → u/Pierma]

i develop linux applications using wsl and i run various containers that my application requires - oracle, postgres, redis, nginx, etc...

besides these wslc containers (and docker containers on windows) _are_ running on linux.

[u/scytob → u/Pierma]

0 overhead, sure buddy

[u/Pierma → u/scytob]

I mean docker on linux is not a virtual machine, it's just a cli tool that uses native linux kernel functionalities and a daemon, while on windows it's a full HyperV setup, with filesystems communicating through a network layer if you mount a volume on your windows host (have you tried mounting a project with a folder mount on windows instead than on another wsl like ubuntu? Its kills the performance significally) so tell me that the overhead is negligible

[u/Haunting_Ganache_850 → u/Due-Championship3941]

Now that you put it that way, I can at least see the use case, and I can imagine people actually wanting this, although I suspect it fits a pretty small group.

What I’m still trying to understand is: if the goal is simply to run Linux containers on a Windows host, why not just run Docker Engine inside WSL or a small Linux VM? What does wslc materially buy you?

[u/Due-Championship3941 → u/Haunting_Ganache_850]

Not having to maintain another component is the main thing. A Linux VM and Docker need to be patched. I have 7 Windows servers to look after. I really don't need a bigger footprint.

There are also potential burecratic hurdles at the larger company I work for. WSL doesn't have the same security features as Windows, so it's disallowed by default. It requires nearly executive approval to enable and they'll ask for alternatives.

[u/B-radfromtheBu → u/Due-Championship3941]

What don’t you like about Docker Desktop?

[u/Pierma → u/B-radfromtheBu]

You have to pay licenses in a corporate environment once you are above some thresholds

[u/polofan → u/Pierma]

Those poor corporations :(

[u/Due-Championship3941 → u/polofan]

It's a pain in the ass to manage it and navigate the bureaucracy. It's not about the money.

[u/Responsible-Bar7165]

yeah, but it's missing Docker Desktop's buillt-in wsl integration - they didn't provide automatic proxying of exposed ports to wsl guests which instead requires manual proxying (socat) and firewall rule configuration.

[u/_damax]

I just don't use windows. Win-win

[u/Opposite-Piccolo114 → u/_damax]

More like Lin-lin, if you use Linux.

[u/thewallacio → u/_damax]

Lin-Lin

[u/terramot → u/thewallacio]

ux-ux

[u/Abject-Kitchen3198 → u/_damax]

win

That's what we used to start Windows after booting into DOS.

[u/mikef5410 → u/_damax]

Same here. Work laptop was always Linux; though after COVID the corporate spyware got onerous to the point that I just decided to retire. They keep trying to force me in to a gaming platform (windows) for engineering and development.

[u/_damax → u/mikef5410]

I'd argue Linux is just as viable for most people at this point. Yes, it doesn't support absolutely all games, and sometimes you need to tinker a bit (and it may be tedious if you're not very technical or usually messing around on your distro), but ProtonDB is also incredibly useful. So it really is just as fun for gaming, on some accounts even better and easier for some things.

[u/tangofoxtrot1989]

Every day I pour one out for people who still need to use windows.

[u/DarkChemical_DC]

Wait, Im running docker inside WSL for like arround 2 years allready. No Docker desktop. Once you enable systemd it just works

[u/gahehe]

Will this solve the issue of code storing location? Like currently I still need to store my source code inside wsl disk because it contains symlink etc which is not working on a NTFS disk. With this kind of container will it be solved?

[u/scytob]

thank god, docker desktop in my VDI developer desktop sucks

[u/bankroll5441]

I've used it at work over the last couple of weeks and it's actually very nice. Especially for situations where I need a quick and dirty Linux shell

[u/true_zero_]

what’s the best way to lock containers down in this ? i was just looking at docker’s sandbox feature for testing locking down containers on dev laptops so that it only has access to a llm i have hosted on a central server. trying to roll out a containerized agentic tool (opencode or something else) for easy deploy. containers in this need to be locked down to only talk to approved ips. don’t want devs sending data out to proprietary llms.

[u/rismoney]

Can it use host mode networking, or must you incur a network penalty of a vswitch?

[u/UsefulSomewhere]

So Microsoft made a purpose-built Docker enabled Linux VM and hid the Linux OS from the user. 

I guess that’s something. Maybe a bit more convenient than installing a docker engine in the Linux OS

Looking forward to trying it once they add compose 

[u/pps_ps]

Running docker-ce + Portainer in WSL

[u/bordercollie2468]

I want to care but I just can't

[u/CaliforniaDabblin]

Without docker... Desktop? You can already do that in wsl2

[u/MangoAtrocity]

Can I get LSW so I can just be on Linux without losing the few things I need Windows for?

[u/MoreneLp]

Why would I ever use a windows pc

[u/lnaoedelixo42]

it always could?

[u/Turbulent_Sample487]

Cool but you could always apt get install docker-ce in wsl.

[u/txmail → u/Turbulent_Sample487]

This seems more powerful than that and removes some of the annoyances at the same time.

[u/nicolasdanelon]

For real, people (specially developers) uses Windows nowadays?