Getting Started with Docker for .NET Core Development on Windows

As a .NET developer, the rise of Docker—originally a Linux‑based container platform—creates a strong incentive to adopt containerization, especially now that .NET Core is cross‑platform and can run inside Docker containers.

History of .NET Core : .NET Core 1.0 was a complete rewrite of the traditional .NET Framework, released as an open‑source project on GitHub. Since 2014 Microsoft has progressively added macOS and Linux support, culminating in the official release of ASP.NET Core 1.0 in June 2016.

Why Docker? Docker quickly gained massive adoption (over 1 billion downloads to date) because it solves the long‑standing “environment inconsistency” problem by packaging an application together with all its dependencies in lightweight, isolated containers.

Benefits for developers include rapid environment provisioning, avoidance of VM overhead, easy hand‑off to testers and operations, and the ability to run multiple containers on modest hardware.

Development environment choices : The series recommends two common setups – Windows + Visual Studio 2015 + Docker for Windows, or macOS + Visual Studio Code + Docker for Mac. Deployment can target Azure or AWS using VSTS as the DevOps pipeline.

1. Install Docker for Windows : Download from Docker’s official site . Docker for Windows runs a Linux VM under Hyper‑V and exposes Docker commands to the Windows shell. After installation, start Docker with administrator rights.

2. Install Docker Tools for Visual Studio : Install the free Visual Studio 2015 Community edition, then add the “Docker Tools for Visual Studio” extension via Tools | Extensions and Updates. The extension integrates Docker commands into the IDE.

3. Prepare the .NET Core environment : Download and install .NET Core 1.0 for Visual Studio from the official Windows page (link provided in the article).

4. Create a .NET Core Web App : In Visual Studio choose File | New | Project… → ASP.NET Core Web Application (.NET Core) , select the “Web Application” template, and let Visual Studio run dotnet restore automatically.

5. Add Docker support : Right‑click the project, select Add | Docker Support . Visual Studio adds a Dockerfile , a docker-compose file, and a DockerTask.ps1 script that wraps common Docker commands.

After adding support, a Docker option appears in the run toolbar; pressing F5 builds the image, runs the container, and attaches the debugger. The container’s hostname (its container ID) can be accessed from the controller code, demonstrating that debugging works just like a regular ASP.NET app.

This article marks the beginning of the “Docker for .NET Developer (D4D)” series, showing how Docker combined with Visual Studio dramatically improves development efficiency. Future posts will cover macOS development, VSTS integration, and cloud‑based Docker deployments.