With the release of window Server Insider 17074, the Microsoft Server team also released a new and smaller Server Container Image.
The new Windows Server Core 2016 Container Image Is 30% smaller than the current 1709 Image and comes with 1.56GB download size and 3.6GB on-disk size.
To test the Image, you will need to download and Install Windows Server Insider build and Install the Docker Insider version as you will see below.
Install Docker On Windows Server Insider 17074
To Install Windows Server Insider 1704 download the build and setup Nested Virtualization, Once done Install docker using the line below:
docker pull microsoft/windowsservercore-insider
To download the new Image, use the cmdlet below:
docker pull microsoft/windowsservercore-insider
To run a container with the new image, run the cmdlet below
Docker run -it microsoft/windowsservercore-insider powershell
When running Get-WindowsFeature, we can see why the image is so light; It’s because many server roles that cannot be containerized have been removed from the Image.
Conclusion
It looks like the Windows Server team Is reviewing every area of Windows Containers and Improving or optimizing it.
This change is great and will help reduce the time it takes to pull the windows Server Container Image and the storage it takes on disk.