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Installing Docker and Portainer on Windows Server (Azure VM)

Installing docker and Portainer on windows server on Azure VM

 This guide walks through the tested and verified process for installing Docker and Portainer on a Windows Server virtual machine hosted on Microsoft Azure. These instructions are intended for production-grade setups using Windows-native Docker. To install Docker on an Azure Windows VM (for production workloads), you’ll want to install Docker Engine – Enterprise or Docker Desktop (for development). For production, it’s best to use Docker EE with Windows Server 2019 or 2022. Here’s a step-by-step guide for setting it up correctly.

✅ Prerequisites

  • An Azure Windows VM (recommended: Windows Server 2019/2022)

  • Administrator access (RDP)

  • Internet connectivity

  • VM should be updated

  • VM should support Hyper-V or Containers feature

  • You should have administrative access (RDP to VM as Admin)

🧰 Step-by-Step: Installing Docker on Azure Windows Server (Production)

Enable Windows Containers and Required Features

 

  1. Login via RDP to your Azure VM.

  2. Open PowerShell as Administrator.

  3. Run the following command to enable the necessary features:

Install-WindowsFeature -Name containers
Install-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V -IncludeManagementTools -Restart

⚠️ The VM may restart after Hyper-V is installed.

♻ Step 1: Install Docker (Manual Installation)

Since DockerMsftProvider and aka.ms links were unreliable, we used the official manual install method.

1.1 Download Docker Engine (ZIP)

Download the latest stable Docker CLI + Engine:

https://download.docker.com/win/static/stable/x86_64/docker-24.0.7.zip

1.2 Extract and Install

  1. Extract the ZIP to:

C:\Program Files\Docker

  1. Add Docker to PATH:

$env:Path += ";C:\Program Files\Docker"
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env:Path, [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)

1.3 Register and Start Docker

dockerd --register-service
Start-Service docker
Set-Service docker -StartupType Automatic

1.4 Verify Docker Installation

docker --version
docker info

🔒 Step 2: Enable Docker TCP API

Portainer requires Docker remote access when Docker socket is unavailable on Windows.

2.1 Edit Daemon Configuration

notepad "C:\ProgramData\Docker\config\daemon.json"

Add the following:

{
  "hosts": ["tcp://0.0.0.0:2375", "npipe://"]
}

2.2 Restart Docker

Restart-Service docker

🚀 Step 3: Install Portainer

Portainer provides a web UI to manage Docker containers.

3.1 Create Portainer Data Folder

mkdir C:\portainer-data

3.2 Run Portainer Container

docker run -d -p 9000:9000 --name portainer `
  --restart=always `
  -v C:\portainer-data:C:\data `
  portainer/portainer-ce `
  -H tcp://host.docker.internal:2375

✅ Note: On Windows, avoid using /var/run/docker.sock. Instead, use tcp://host.docker.internal:2375 for Docker API access.

🌐 Step 4: Access Portainer

  1. Open browser:

http://<your-vm-public-ip>:9000

  1. Set up the admin password

  2. Connect to the local Docker endpoint using the Docker API URL

🚧 Troubleshooting Tips

  • Ensure port 9000 is allowed in the Azure NSG and Windows Firewall

  • Confirm Docker API is exposed on 2375

  • Test connectivity with: Invoke-WebRequest http://localhost:2375/version