'Docker Desktop Installer does not start

My docker installation stopped working, so I decided to uninstall docker and reinstall it.

First, uninstalling it did not work, I would uninstall it via the windows uninstall feature and then the app would reappear when I restarted my laptop. I also ran this script in powershell with admin privileges.

Then I somehow finally got it to uninstall and went to open the same installer I had used to install it the first time. And it did not open (did not even ask me for permission to make changes) so I figured I would redownload the installer.

Redownloaded it and had the exact same thing happen, tried it a couple of more times and suddenly it asked me for permission to start. I gleefully clicked yes and waited for the installer to start.

However, nothing happened. I tried it a couple more times and suddenly it worked and my installer started. Unfortunately, it hung on "Installing CLI Plugins". I let it sit there for more than 30 minutes waiting for something to happen until I hit the red x and then "yes" when it prompted me if I wanted to stop the installation". That didn't close the window so I force closed it via task manager.

I have restarted my laptop a bunch of times and clicked on the installer many more and have not gotten back to the install screen. Any help would be great. 

Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem | % Caption
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem | % Buildnumber
18363
dockerinstallationdocker-for-windows


Solution 1:[1]

I am facing the same issue on a recurrent basis. Typically after a mandatory upgrade on my corporate PC.

Symptoms

  1. Docker Desktop does not start
  2. Docker Desktop installation fails due to service startup timeout
  3. The following error show up

In Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application was reporting the following error:

Faulting application name: Docker Desktop Installer.exe, version: 2.3.0.45183, time stamp: 0xb540b7fd
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.18362.815, time stamp: 0xb29ecf52
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000000a10e7
Faulting process id: 0x232c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d63b7ed4bb1ca7
Faulting application path: C:\Users\johndoe\Downloads\Docker Desktop Installer.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: f19d010f-a418-4248-8828-38d409718a78
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Solutions

  1. Reinstall

Reinstalling Docker Desktop worked (once)

Specifically 2.3.0.45519 worked and 2.3.0.45183 was systematically failing.

However this trick only worked until the next upgrade. Hence solution 2

  1. Disable Power Service

    • Run services.msc
    • Disable Power service (you will not be able to stop it)
    • Restart
    • Give it another shot.

enter image description here

I confirm after multiple reboots that this solution is repeatable.

Solution 2:[2]

This steps may help: 1.On you windows machine, enable Hyper-V and Containers check boxes.( Search on internet for enabling them) 2. Download docker for windows and start installing as admin 3. Once installation is done, open command prompt or power shell and run, 'docker version' and verify OS/Arch: and verify whether it shows Linux or Windows. If it shows Linux, switch to windows( Search on internet for switching).

Solution 3:[3]

  1. Open command prompt as Run as Administrator
  2. navigate to the downloaded folder cd C:\Users\ username\Downloads
  3. Run the executable by just typing "Docker Desktop Installer.exe"

For me, the problem of not starting is because of Corporate Windows setup

Solution 4:[4]

Executed in cmd window and saw the report of an uncaught exception. It is using nlog for reporting install issues, so I reconfigured the nlog.config file in the folder where I am executing installer, with these lines in targets tag:

    <targets>

    <!--
    add your targets here
    See https://github.com/nlog/NLog/wiki/Targets for possible targets.
    See https://github.com/nlog/NLog/wiki/Layout-Renderers for the possible layout renderers.
    -->

    
    <!-- Write events to a file with the date in the filename. -->
    <target xsi:type="File" name="f" FileName="${basedir}/logs/${shortdate}.log"
            layout="${longdate} ${uppercase:${level}} ${message}" />
    
      <target xsi:type="File" name="file" FileName="${basedir}/logs/${shortdate}.log"/>
  </targets>

and the installer run appropriately. Could be and old nlog.config in the folder.

Solution 5:[5]

I had the same problem. When I executed the installer through "cmd", with admin privs, it showed me the following error:

System.Exception: Path contains symlink: C:\ProgramData\DockerDesktop\

Turns out that I was actually using a Symbolic Link. I had made it before in order to save some disk space at C:.

Deleting it solved my problem. Although I'm running out of disk space.

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1
Solution 2 Raju Shikha
Solution 3 Vinoj John Hosan
Solution 4
Solution 5 Renato Camargos

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