I'm curious why AWS doesn't offer any standard AMIs for Windows 10 or 11. I've been working with Windows Server 2016 and 2019 for my AWS EC2 instances, and I've learned that Docker Desktop isn't supported on these Windows Server versions either. Most of the Linux AMIs don't seem to work well with a containerized Docker configuration on Windows Server. Is there a specific reason Microsoft doesn't support Docker Desktop on Windows Server? And why is AWS steering clear of Windows 10 and 11 AMIs?
4 Answers
I think it's strange too! On Azure, you can quickly set up a Windows 10 or 11 VM and run Docker Desktop without any issues, mainly because Azure natively supports WSL. AWS should consider this since it doesn't seem like a big issue on Azure.
You can technically set up Windows 11 on a VMware instance, export it, and import it into EC2 as an AMI. But you won't find a pre-configured Windows 11 AMI in AWS. Running Docker Desktop on Windows requires specific EC2 instance types with nested virtualization, which aren't common. If you're running Linux, you typically won't run into these issues.
Docker Desktop runs in a VM, which means it needs nested virtualization on the EC2 instance, and only certain metal instances can handle that—at a premium price. Microsoft isn't keen on supporting Windows Desktop on AWS for that reason. But the real question is, why try to force Windows for containers when Linux is the standard in the cloud?
AWS EC2 is designed for server environments, while Windows 10 and 11 are not. There's actually a virtual desktop offering for those uses. Plus, Docker works better with Linux containers, so for cloud setups, Linux is usually the way to go.
Exactly! Linux containers on Windows can be tricky since it basically runs a Hyper-V VM. But using a Linux EC2 instance is definitely a more straightforward choice for containers.