Docker won't start on Windows: Not Enough memory to start docker

Question

I am trying to get started with Docker on Windows. My machine has 4GB of RAM and a 1.9GHz - 2.5GHz Intel i5 processor, running Windows 10 Pro x64. I know these aren\'t power

Answer 1

Posting what worked for me:

1. Open Resources settings in docker
2. Set memory to lowest setting, in my case 1024MB
3. Open Task manager, verify that I've at least the memory I specified above free
4. Restart docker, switch to linux containers

In my case this worked because I was using almost all of my RAM with VScode and firefox, so closed them and tried and it worked

Answer 2

When I experienced this problem I modified the PowerShell script MobyLinux.ps1 found in the resources folder on the Docker install in C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\resources. Essentially I forced the values for the $CPUs to 2 and the $Memory to 512, which worked for my dev box's limited resources!

At this point when Docker drops the MobyLinuxVM instance in Hyper-V and re-creates it from the PowerShell script it now uses my values:

This time the VM remains up and stable, and Docker successfully switches from the Windows Containers to the Linux Containers:

Hope this helps someone.

Answer 3

I had the same problem. In my case I had another VM running on Hyper-V that was consuming all the resources. Even after system restart the VM was always active. I opened Hyper-V Administrator and deactivated the problematic VM. Then I could start Docker properly.

Answer 4

I lowered my memory and swap to the lowest it would go as well as the disk image size to 32gb and it finally started without switching to windows containers or having to reboot.

Answer 5

Just follow the step:

1. Go to Troubleshoot in the Docker dashboard.
2. Click on Clean/Purge data.
3. Select all options and press delete.

It takes a few minutes. (that's work for me)

Answer 6

if you are on window and got this error, Go to Search box

#1 type Hyper-V Manager 
 Click on it,
 a window like attached screenshot open,

#2 Select  MobilinuxVM(normally same name if running windows docker)
#3 Right click and open - Setting 
    2 The second window will open(setting for MobiLinux) i.e to the screenshot.
#4 Go to Memory Tab in left Pane.
#5 click on a dynamic checkbox and set minimum value to some lower amount say 512, and max value to the desired one,
#6 apply 
now it will start running as well after few minutes take the amount it required as well.