Access Windows 2016 Server Container (Docker container) via GUI?

Question

I need to use Docker / Windows containers on Windows 2016 Server and prepare it Windows applications to run on it. Configuring Windows via Powershell just is not as convenient though as it is on Ubuntu, especially if you never worked with Windows Server really and need to learn all the Powershell commands ;)

Is there a way to access a Windows Container via GUI?

It's possible with Docker, Ubuntu, VNC: Can you run GUI apps in a docker container?

Wondering if anything similar can be done for Windows Containers?

(I am working on-premise, not using Azure. Found a similar but unanswered question here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32721422/windows-server-containers-azure-how-to-create-a-container-with-gui)

Thanks.

== Update ==

RDP is definitely not an option as per February 2016 - not sure if they plan to support it in the final release?!

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/about/work_in_progress#remote-desktop

Remote Desktop

Windows Containers cannot be managed/interacted with through a RDP session in TP4.

So far I managed to have at least a decent file explorer by using Midnight Commander, but still command line on Windows is not much fun.

Solution

in this video MS-container-developer Taylor Brown says that they break up with RDP from TP3 to TP4 and will very probably do not support RDP in RTM Version Server 2016:

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechNetVirtualConference/TechNetVC2016/Day-3-Containers-Session-with-QA

Update as of Dez. 2018:

Server 2019 is out and RDP is still not possible / supported for all container images. (of course it does not make any sense for nano images)

check this nice intro to what has changed: https://stefanscherer.github.io/docker-on-windows-server-2019/

to have a somewhat complete overview, it should be mentioned that there are some hacks out in the wild, that may RDP make work in some images and setups, e.g.: https://withinrafael.com/2018/03/09/using-remote-desktop-services-in-containers/

Comments

[Shane Castle]

Here's more comments from the team saying there will be no RDP support in Windows Server 2016: social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/…

[ootwch]

This video is two hours long - a time-range for this information would have been useful to me...

[Falco Alexander]

@ootwch it became easier to google that statement recently. e.g. social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/… . furthermore the statement is right at the beginning at the video around 2-4 minutes