WinContainers

A focused Windows desktop manager for containers running through Microsoft's WSL Containers runtime (WSLC). WinContainers gives developers a small, native WinUI 3 interface for viewing and operating containers without Docker Desktop.

What It Does

• View, start, stop, restart, and remove containers.
• Pull, inspect, and remove container images.
• Manage volumes and networks.
• Open container logs and an interactive terminal.
• Detect WSL2, virtualization, and WSLC prerequisites during onboarding.
• Install or update WSLC from Microsoft's official WSL releases.
• Check for Stable or Beta application updates.
• Run as a portable app or install with the Windows setup executable.

Requirements

• Windows 11.
• WSL2 and virtualization enabled.
• WSLC (wslc.exe) for container operations.
• Administrator approval when installing WSL2 or WSLC.

The onboarding screen checks prerequisites and provides installation actions where possible.

Download

Download the latest installer or portable ZIP from GitHub Releases.

The installed application lives under %LOCALAPPDATA%\WinContainers. Portable builds can be extracted to any folder.

Build From Source

dotnet build WinContainers.slnx -c Debug --nologo -v q
dotnet test tests/WinContainers.Tests.Unit/WinContainers.Tests.Unit.csproj -c Debug --nologo -v q

Publish a self-contained Windows build:

dotnet publish src/WinContainers.App/WinContainers.App.csproj `
  -c Debug -r win-x64 --self-contained `
  -p:PublishTrimmed=false -o publish/WinContainers --nologo -v q

Runtime

WinContainers uses wslc.exe as its container runtime. It does not bundle Docker Desktop or use Docker Desktop binaries. Container commands run through the local WSLC runtime and the app communicates with its in-process local service.

Open Source

WinContainers is free and open source under the MIT License. It is a focused local desktop utility, not a hosted service or paid SaaS product.

Author

Created by Jan Petersen.