Quick Start

Windows 10 in Your
Browser in 5 Minutes

Watch the video guide, then follow the steps below to spin up your free Windows environment on GitHub Codespaces.

PC-Free — Run Windows 10 Free in Your Browser

Watch on YouTube · Full tutorial

Then follow the step-by-step guide below

Step-by-Step Guide

GitHub

Create your repository & Codespace

Fork the PC-Free repo and launch a maximum-capacity Codespace. No local setup required.

github.com — Do this in your browser

1 Go to github.com/jephersonRD/pc-free and click Fork (top right)
2 In your forked repo, click Code → Codespaces → New codespace
3 Click Configure and create codespace and select the largest available machine type (4-core or higher)
4 Wait ~2 min for the environment to load — a VS Code window will open in your browser

Terminal

Check available storage

Open the Codespace terminal and run this to see available disk partitions. Pick the one with the most free space.

codespace ~ bash

$ df -h

Terminal

Create Docker data folder

Create the directory that Docker will use to store all Windows data.

codespace ~ bash

$ sudo mkdir -p /tmp/docker-data

Terminal

Configure Docker daemon

Open the daemon config file, paste the JSON below, then save with Ctrl+O → Enter → Ctrl+X.

codespace ~ bash

$ sudo nano /etc/docker/daemon.json

/etc/docker/daemon.json

{
  "data-root": "/tmp/docker-data"
}

Action required

Restart your Codespace

The Docker daemon config won't take effect until you restart. Go to Command Palette → Codespaces: Restart, or close and reopen the Codespace from GitHub.

After restarting, open the terminal again and continue with the next step.

Terminal

Verify Docker configuration

Confirm that Docker Root Dir shows /tmp/docker-data in the output.

codespace ~ bash

$ docker info
...
Docker Root Dir: /tmp/docker-data  ← must show this

File — Codespace editor

Create windows10.yml

Create this file in the root of your Codespace. You can open it in the VS Code file explorer on the left sidebar.

windows10.yml

# Before running docker-compose up, execute:
# bash check_github_follow.sh || exit 1
# If you don't follow https://github.com/jephersonRD
# the environment will NOT start.

services:
  windows:
    image: dockurr/windows
    container_name: windows
    environment:
      VERSION:  "10"
      USERNAME: ${WINDOWS_USERNAME}
      PASSWORD: ${WINDOWS_PASSWORD}
      RAM_SIZE: "10G"
      CPU_CORES: "4"
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    ports:
      - "8006:8006"
      - "3389:3389/tcp"
    volumes:
      - /tmp/docker-data:/mnt/disco1
      - windows-data:/mnt/windows-data
    devices:
      - "/dev/kvm:/dev/kvm"
      - "/dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun"
    stop_grace_period: 2m
    restart: always

volumes:
  windows-data:

File — Codespace editor

Create .env with your credentials

Create a .env file in the same folder. Replace the placeholder values with your actual username and password for Windows.

.env

WINDOWS_USERNAME=YourUsername
WINDOWS_PASSWORD=YourPassword
GITHUB_USER=YourGitHubUsername

Never commit .env to git. Add it to your .gitignore right now:

codespace ~ bash

$ echo ".env" >> .gitignore

Terminal · Launch

Start Windows 10!

Run Docker Compose. The first boot downloads the Windows image — takes 5–10 minutes. Subsequent starts take ~2–3 min.

codespace ~ bash

$ docker-compose -f windows10.yml up

Once running, go to the Ports tab in Codespace → find port 8006 → set visibility to Public → click the globe icon to open Windows in your browser.

Terminal

Shut down Windows

When you're done, gracefully stop the container. Your data is preserved in Docker volumes and will be there on the next start.

codespace ~ bash

$ docker stop windows

Windows 10 in YourBrowser in 5 Minutes

Windows 10 in Your
Browser in 5 Minutes