Windows can finally run Linux containers natively. A hands-on look at wslc, with real install timings. On September 29, 2026, Microsoft officially announced on the Windows Developer Blog that WSL Containers had graduated. The official statement was that, starting today, you can build, run, and manage Linu

💡 What You Will Learn

Windows can finally run Linux containers natively. A hands-on look at wslc, with real install timings. On September 29, 2026, Microsoft officially announced on the Windows Developer Blog that WSL Cont

📜 Table of Contents

• What exactly is wslc (it's a one-command affair)
• What Was Run, With Data
• Why this is a threat to Docker Desktop
• Don't rush to uninstall Docker Desktop (cold water section)
• Microsoft's real intent

Windows Can Finally Run Linux Containers Natively, and I Tried wslc Right Away

On September 29, 2026, Microsoft officially announced on the Windows Developer Blog: WSL Containers is going GA. The official word is that starting today, building, running, and managing Linux containers on Windows is all in GA status—just run wsl --update in your terminal and you're good to go.

The run below was performed on a Windows 11 machine in a clean state. Every timing is measured, not estimated.

What exactly is wslc (it's a one-command affair)

You've probably heard of WSL, Microsoft's official "run Linux inside Windows" solution—install it and you get a real Linux environment inside Windows. Plenty of people in the AI era use it to run dev environments and local models. WSL Containers is a layer built on top of that foundation: a new command wslc.exe (with an alias container.exe), used almost exactly like Docker, letting you build, run, and manage Linux containers directly on Windows.

The key thing: the whole thing ships with Windows. No extra installer, no VM software, no GUI client. The official blog says they want Windows to be "the best place to build, run, and manage Linux workloads."

What Was Run, With Data

The test machine had never had Docker installed—a clean environment:

The experience: you type wslc run hello-world, and the terminal output tastes exactly like Docker—pull the image, run it, "Hello from Docker!" The only difference is that none of this happened with Docker installed on the test machine. The command list is complete too: image, network, volume, build, exec, logs, stats—everything you'd expect.

There are awkward bits. In wslc ps -a, container names are auto-generated from random words (mine came out as things like "silent_appalachian"), unlike Docker which prefixes with the image name. Minor detail, doesn't affect usage.

Why this is a threat to Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop (Docker the company's Windows GUI client) changed its subscription terms back in 2021: companies with more than 250 employees or over $10 million in annual revenue have to pay to use it—several hundred dollars a year per seat. A lot of companies have been hunting for alternatives ever since, and the rise of Podman and Rancher Desktop was largely forced by that clause.

Microsoft's answer now comes in three paths:

One, lightweight workflows migrate directly. The wslc commands are highly consistent with Docker, images pull straight from Docker Hub's standard OCI images, and wslc run / wslc build work with just a prefix swap. From zero to my first running container took one install command plus one run command.

Two, the dev scenario is paved. This GA came with a batch of ecosystem integrations: VS Code's dev container can set wslc as the default driver, VS Code's official container extension already supports it, and Microsoft's own .NET Aspire treats it as a first-class runtime. The most mainstream daily path—"write code, spin up container, debug"—is already wired up by Microsoft.

Three, enterprise control is the killer feature. Intune can disable WSL Containers with one click and restrict image pulls to approved registries only; Defender for Endpoint can tie container processes, files, and network activity back to the Windows host for security auditing. Docker Desktop can't offer this—containers run inside Windows' own security framework, so corporate IT can actually manage them.

Don't rush to uninstall Docker Desktop (cold water section)

No compose yet. wslc compose is what the official blog itself calls the "number one feature request," coming in the next iteration. That compose.yaml in your project won't run yet. A huge number of real projects rely on compose for local development, and this alone blocks most people.

No Kubernetes integration. Docker Desktop's built-in k8s, Rancher Desktop, minikube—none of these orchestration options have an equivalent yet. If you need local orchestration, you're on your own.

Third-party testing is cautious. UK consultancy endjin's hands-on conclusion during the preview period was that "basic workflows and dev containers perform well, but we'd recommend holding off on switching from Docker Desktop."

So my take: if you run single images, do dev container development, or are learning containers, you can switch now; if you lean heavily on compose and k8s, wait until compose lands.

Microsoft's real intent

One last angle that's easy to overlook. In the roadmap published alongside this announcement, Microsoft states it plainly: they want to upgrade Linux on Windows from a "development environment" to a "strategic execution platform," running AI workloads and cloud-native workloads, and bring those workloads into the same enterprise security, management, and governance framework as Windows itself.

Translation: every container running on a company computer from now on will be visible, manageable, and blockable by IT. Containers go from "a tool developers install themselves" to "a first-class citizen in the enterprise IT governance system." This angle is still rarely covered in domestic reporting—if you handle container-related matters at your company, you might forward this to your ops team first.

One last question: what's your current container workflow—Docker Desktop, Podman, or docker-ce installed directly in WSL? If Microsoft's "built-in and free" path works out, would you switch? Let's talk in the comments.