Before installing docker, you need to find out the type of windows system you have. Whether you have windows 10 HOME or windows 10 PRO will impact how you install docker.

To find out your system type,

• Click on windows icon, search “system info“,
• Click on “system information“
• Check on your "OS Name” to see your system type.

Follow the instruction below that matches your system type.

How to install docker on windows 10 Home

Follow the steps below to install docker on windows 10 Home

You can also watch this video that shows you how to install docker on windows 10 home and windows 10 pro or read the blog or even better, use the blog and video together to install docker.

Step 1: System Requirements to Install Docker on Windows Home

These are the computer requirements to install docker on windows home

• Windows 10 64bit, version 1903 or higher.
• 4GB system RAM

In addition to the system requirements above, you also need to install WSL2 and activate virtualization on your computer.

Don’t worry, I got you covered. Follow the Instructions below on Step 2 to enable virtualization and WSL2

Step 2: Enable Virtualization & WSL2 on your windows Home computer

NOTE: You MUST have WSL2 in order to use docker in windows HOME. Follow the Instructions I have laid out on this blog teaching you How to install WSL2 on your windows home computer.

These are the things you need to have enabled on windows home computer in order to install and use docker.

• Virtual Machine Platform
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2)
• BIOS-level hardware virtualization enabled.

To enable Virtual Machine Platform and WSL,

Click on windows icon —> search for “Turn windows features on or off” —> click on it —> select “Virtual machine platform” and “Windows subsystem for linux“, click OK.

You will need to re-boot your computer after this step.

WARNING: The above instructions installs WSL but NOT WSL2 which is what you need for docker.

NOTE: To upgrade to WSL2, Follow the instructions I have laid out on this blog —> How to install/uprade to WSL2 on your computer

After following the instructions on that blog to upgrade to WSL2, return to this blog.

Then, FOLLOW Steps 3 & 4 Below to install and start Docker on your windows HOME Computer.

How to install docker on windows 10 Pro

Follow the steps below to install docker on windows 10 Pro

Step 1: System Requirements to Install Docker on Windows Pro

These are the computer requirements to install docker on windows 10 Pro, enterprise, or education.

• Windows 10 64-bit processor, Build 17134 or later.
• 4GB system RAM
• BIOS-level hardware virtualization enabled. Follow the instructions on STEP 2 BELOW to enable it.

Step 2: Enable Virtualization & Hyper-V on your computer

These are the virtualization requirements you need in order to use docker on windows 10 pro.

• Make sure your computer meets the requirements above. For more information on computer requirements, check out his page on hyper-v requirements.
• Now, you have to make sure
  • Virtualization is enabled in the BIOS, your computer has
  • Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), and
  • Hypervisor enabled at Windows startup.
• Use this method to verify your system can run hyper-V. Open the command line —> type in “systeminfo” —> scroll to the bottom and check Hyper-V requirements. Make sure everything says “YES”

If everything is not checked yes, you need to google how to enable BIOS level virtualization for your computer since it varies from device to device.

If everything is checked Yes, then proceed to the next step.

• Click on windows icon —> Type in “Turn windows feature on or off” —> Click on it —> select “Hyper-V” and make sure both sub-options are selected too.

If you see “Windows Hypervisor Platform” instead of “Hyper-V”, your computer may not be compatible for Hyper-V.

• You could also enable hyper-V using Powershell. Open Powershell as an admin and type

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All

• Alternatively, you can also enable hyper-V using the command prompt. Just open the command prompt tool and type

DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /All /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V

No matter how enable Hyper-V, re-start your computer before moving onto the next step, if not docker won’t work.

If you run into any problems with getting docker to work because of virtualization problems, I suggest you check out this page.

Now that you have Hyper-V enabled, you are ready to move onto the next step which is installing docker.

Step 3: Install Docker on Windows Home and Windows Pro Computer

These are the steps to install docker on windows pro

• First, download docker for windows using this link
• Double click the installer that you just downloaded to run the docker installer
• When given the option, make sure “enable Hyper-V Windows Features” option is selected on the Configuration page.
• Just follow the installer to finish installing docker.

Step 4: Start Docker on Windows Home and Windows Pro Machine

After installing docker, it doesn’t start automatically, you have to start it manually.

• Search for docker, click on the app

• After clicking on the app, you will see the docker icon on the windows status bar. If you don’t see it, click on the up arrow and you should see it.
• When the docker icon stops blinking, then docker stabilized and is ready to use.
• When you finish using docker, be sure to right-click the docker icon on the status bar, and click on quit, to quit the docker engine.
• If you close docker without stopping the engine, the engine will continue to run in the background until you right-click the icon to quit the docker engine.

After installing docker, you will get some initial instructions of how things work from docker documentation the first time you open docker app. Feel free to liberally use those instructions provided by docker to help you get started.

Step 5: Use Docker for Data Science & Deploy to AWS

If you are a data scientist using docker for the first time, you might be wondering how you could use docker for a data science project. I am one-step ahead of you. In this detailed blog post, I show you how to use docker for data science projects.

If you are working in docker, you might be interested in launching your app online using AWS. Don’t worry, I got you covered. In this detailed blog post –> I cover How to Deploy Data Science APP to AWS ElasticBeanStalk using Docker

If you have any questions or comments, let me know below.