Installing Podman Desktop and Podman on Windows
Installing Podman Desktop
To install Podman Desktop:
-
To start the Podman Desktop installer, open the downloaded file.
Alternate installation methods:
- Silent Windows installer
- Chocolatey
- Scoop
- Winget
Silent Windows installer
-
To install without user interaction, run the Windows installer with the silent flag
/Sfrom the Command Prompt:> podman-desktop-1.6.4-setup-x64.exe /S
Chocolatey
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Install the Chocolatey package manager.
-
Install from the terminal:
> choco install podman-desktop
Scoop package manager for Windows
-
Install from the terminal:
> scoop bucket add extras
> scoop install podman-desktop
Winget
-
Install from the terminal:
> winget install -e --id RedHat.Podman-Desktop
Installing Podman
On Windows, running the Podman container engine requires running a Linux distribution on a virtual machine.
Podman Desktop creates a Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2 (WSL 2) virtual machine: the Podman Machine.
Main benefits are:
- Ease of use.
- WSL 2 native virtualization performance.
Check that your environment has:
- 6 GB RAM for the Podman Machine.
- Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2 (WSL 2) prerequisites. See Enabling WSL 2, WSL basic commands, and Troubleshooting WSL 2:
- The Windows user has administrator privileges.
- Windows 64bit.
- Windows 10 Build 19043 or greater, or Windows 11.
- On a virtual machine: Nested Virtualization enabled.
To install the Podman Machine:
-
To prepare your system, enable the WSL feature, without installing the default Ubuntu distribution of Linux.
Open the Command Prompt, and run:.
> wsl --install --no-distribution -
Restart your computer.
-
The Dashboard screen displays: Podman needs to be set up.
Click the Set up button.
Review and validate all confirmation screens to set up the Podman Machine.
When necessary, follow the instructions to install system prerequisites.
To verify that Podman is set up:
-
In the Dashboard, the Podman tile displays Podman is running.
