Stay on Top of Emerging Technology Trends Get updates impacting your industry from our GigaOm Research Community

Microsoft said today that users can now run Docker inside a Windows machine and manage Linux-based containers with the new Docker Command Line Interface for Windows. The news follows up on Microsoft and Docker’s recent partnership to ensure that Docker can run nicely on the Azure cloud and Windows Server.

Previously, there wasn’t a standard way to get [company]Docker[/company] running on Windows, and developers had to either use a Linux-based client CLI or the boot2docker application that sets up a customized virtual machine on a Windows machine that contains the Docker daemon, wrote Khalid Mouss, a [company]Microsoft[/company] senior program manager for Azure Compute Runtime, in a blog post detailing the news.

While these jerry-rigged methods work, developers now have a Microsoft-blessed way to run Docker and can cut out extra steps.

Docker’s official GitHub repository now contains the Docker CLI code, wrote Mouss.

Microsoft also created a Docker image for ASP.NET that’s now available on the Docker Hub. With this new Docker image, Microsoft claims developers can make “ASP.NET-ready containers from the base image.” Microsoft recently open sourced the .NET framework in a bid to win developer credibility outside the Windows world, so it makes sense that it wants its web frameworks to come packed with Docker-friendly tools considering Docker is such a hit with coders.

Docker’s CTO and founder Solomon Hykes came on the Structure Show over the summer to talk about the rise of Docker as well as a little bit on where Windows fits in.