Contents

Configuration

Configuring Windows 10 and 11

Contents

Windows 10 and 11 provide an optimal experience when running Windows containers, but only when process isolation mode is used. Using Hyper-V isolation mode will result in a sub-optimal experience due to several issues that impact performance and stability. The default isolation mode depends on the specific version of Windows being used:

  • Under Windows 10, Hyper-V isolation mode is the default isolation mode and process isolation mode must manually enabled each time a container is built or run. The ue4-docker build command will automatically pass the flag to enable process isolation mode where possible. This requires Windows 10 version 1809 or newer.

  • Under Windows 11, process isolation mode is the default isolation mode.

Requirements

  • 64-bit Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education (Version 1607 or newer)
  • Hardware-accelerated virtualisation enabled in the system BIOS/EFI
  • Minimum 8GB of RAM
  • Minimum 600GiB available disk space for building container images

Step 1: Install Docker CE for Windows

Download and install Docker CE for Windows from the Docker Store.

Step 2: Install Python 3 via Chocolatey

The simplest way to install Python and pip under Windows is to use the Chocolatey package manager. To do so, run the following command from an elevated PowerShell prompt:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force;
iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString(
	'https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'
))

You may need to restart your shell for it to recognise the updates that the Chocolatey installer makes to the system PATH environment variable. Once these changes are recognised, you can install Python by running the following command from either an elevated PowerShell prompt or an elevated Command Prompt:

choco install -y python

Step 3: Install ue4-docker

Install the ue4-docker Python package by running the following command from an elevated Command Prompt:

pip install ue4-docker

Step 4: Manually configure Docker daemon settings

For building and running Windows containers:

  • Configure the Docker daemon to use Windows containers rather than Linux containers.
  • Configure the Docker daemon to increase the maximum container disk size from the default 20GB limit by following the instructions provided by Microsoft. The 120GB limit specified in the instructions is not quite enough, so set a 400GB limit instead. Be sure to restart the Docker daemon after applying the changes to ensure they take effect.

The ue4-docker maintainers do not provide support for building and running Linux containers under Windows, due to the various technical limitations of the Hyper-V and WSL2 backends for Docker Desktop. (See this issue for details of these limitations.) This functionality is still present in ue4-docker for those who choose to use it, but users are solely responsible for troubleshooting any issues they encounter when doing so.

For building and running Linux containers: