For Docker lovers, Windows Server Containers can be managed from the Docker CLI, using the same commands currently used to create and run Docker containers on Linux.

Microsoft is building new container technologies into the next Windows Server release, enabling Dockerized applications to run on Windows Server on-premises or on Azure.

The next line in the Dockerfile, which starts with RUN, is telling Docker to run some PowerShell commands that turn on the Web-Server Windows feature and download ServiceMonitor.exe, which IIS ...

With this release, Microsoft is not positioning Windows Server Containers as an outright competitor to the Docker container, but rather as a complementary technology.

Unlike Docker, there are "no companion virtual machines running Linux, or anything like that at all," Boxer said. "It's just a native Windows application; you load it onto your server and you can ...

What you can do, however, is use the same Docker client to manage both kinds of containers. Microsoft is also working on a second container deployment option for Windows Server: Hyper-V Containers.

That’s going to change soon, however, as Microsoft today announced that it will add support for Docker to Windows Server in future releases.