Docker Quickstart for Windows instructions do not work

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1

When I attempt to follow the quickstart directions, the commands I’m given to execute don’t work. The install goes smoothly, but everything goes wrong from here.

The first step after running hello-world is to run

cd desktop

Which doesn’t work. It gives the error “-sh: cd: can’t cd to desktop”. Furthermore, when I get to the step that says run

notepad Dockerfile&

I get the error “-sh: notepad: not found”

2

I found this too today. I’m running Win10 Pro, but I don’t think that matters. The instructions start you out running in the Quickstart Terminal shell (Linux on the VM), but the “cd Desktop” step seemed to assume we’re running in the Windows cmd.exe shell.

I never actually finished the tutorial because of that. It was enough to get me started, and then I started looking thru the docs and trying some other stuff. I see a number of inconsistencies here and there - enough to derail a new user. I started taking notes so I can report the issues to be fixed, but not sure of the best way to submit them.

3

Oh, and definitely the “notepad not found” error is the product of running that command in the linux shell of the Quickstart Terminal.

I ended up destroying that machine and dropping into the Windows Docker client (via cmd.exe) and creating a new one there, something like this:

  1. Start cmd.exe

  2. C:\Users\me>docker-machine create --driver virtualbox my-default
    Creating VirtualBox VM…
    Creating SSH key…
    Starting VirtualBox VM…
    Starting VM…
    <wait a long time….>
    To see how to connect Docker to this machine, run: docker-machine env my-default

  3. Then I ran the command suggested in the last line above ^^^^ :
    C:\Users\matsaleh>docker-machine env my-default --shell cmd
    set DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY=1
    set DOCKER_HOST=tcp://192.168.99.100:2376
    set DOCKER_CERT_PATH=C:\Users\matsaleh.docker\machine\machines\my-default
    set DOCKER_MACHINE_NAME=my-default
    # Run this command to configure your shell:
    # copy and paste the above values into your command prompt

  4. And then I did a quick copy/paste of the stuff above into my windows shell as suggested above.
    After that, I was able to run the docker commands on the my-default machine from the windows shell. I didn’t try it, but I bet the notepad.exe step will work from there because it’s windows and not linux.

HTH cheers.