Quick container setup on Windows with Winget

If you need a quick local container and Kubernetes setup on Windows (10 or 11), you can install the usual tooling directly with winget command-line tool. This makes the installation(s) convenient and enables automation, too.

Now, the prerequisites: to run Docker and Kubernetes (K8s) locally, you must have Windows 10/11 Professional, Education or Enterprise and WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) installed.

With those in place, you can start looking at a simple, local, developer-focused setup. This contains at least:

• Docker Desktop
• The kubectl CLI tool for Kubernetes management
• Minikube for running a local Kubernetes cluster.

First, install Docker Desktop:

winget install Docker.DockerDesktop

Next, install the Kubernetes command-line tools:

winget install Kubernetes.kubectl
winget install Kubernetes.minikube

After installation, restart your terminal (so that PATH settings take effect) and verify the tools:

docker --version
kubectl version --client
minikube version

Start Docker Desktop before continuing. Once Docker is running, you can start a local Kubernetes cluster with:

minikube start

This command downloads the required Kubernetes images and creates a local cluster using Docker as the container runtime. Inside Docker, you get a running container with the name minikube.

You can verify the cluster status:

kubectl get nodes

Or, you can open the web dashboard:

minikube dashboard

A working setup should show one local node in the Ready state.

Tip: Minikube automatically configures the local Kubernetes context for kubectl, so you usually do not need additional configuration for local testing.

Handy commands:

minikube stop
minikube delete
kubectl get pods -A

For local ASP.NET Core or container testing, this setup is usually enough without needing a full remote Kubernetes environment.

Happy containerization!