I have Windows 11 Home (which does not allow Hyper-V, only Pro edition does). Installed WSL2 and Docker Desktop.
Installed Minikube using Chocolatey but it refused to start. Searching on SO, I found this advice in several posts, but it failed to work.
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> docker system prune
WARNING! This will remove:
- all stopped containers
- all networks not used by at least one container
- all dangling images
- all dangling build cache
Are you sure you want to continue? [y/N] y
error during connect: In the default daemon configuration on Windows, the docker client must be run with elevated privileges to connect.: Post "http://%2F%2F.%2Fpipe%2Fdocker_engine/v1.24/containers/prune": open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified.
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> minikube delete
* Removed all traces of the "minikube" cluster.
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> minikube start --driver=docker
* minikube v1.25.2 on Microsoft Windows 11 Home 10.0.22000 Build 22000
* Using the docker driver based on user configuration
X Exiting due to PROVIDER_DOCKER_VERSION_EXIT_1: "docker version --format -" exit status 1: error during connect: In the default daemon configuration on Windows, the docker client must be run with elevated privileges to connect.: Get "http://%2F%2F.%2Fpipe%2Fdocker_engine/v1.24/version": open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified.
* Documentation: https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/drivers/docker/
I thought of trying to have Docker Desktop already running before I start minikube.
From the Windows Start menu, I ran Docker Desktop in Administrator mode.
Now I ran the command again to remove old stuff,
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> minikube delete
* Removed all traces of the "minikube" cluster.
and now specify the docker driver
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> minikube start --driver=docker
* minikube v1.25.2 on Microsoft Windows 11 Home 10.0.22000 Build 22000
* Using the docker driver based on user configuration
* Starting control plane node minikube in cluster minikube
* Pulling base image ...
> gcr.io/k8s-minikube/kicbase: 379.06 MiB / 379.06 MiB 100.00% 10.23 MiB p
* Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=3000MB) ...
* Preparing Kubernetes v1.23.3 on Docker 20.10.12 ...
- kubelet.housekeeping-interval=5m
- Generating certificates and keys ...
- Booting up control plane ...
- Configuring RBAC rules ...
* Verifying Kubernetes components...
- Using image gcr.io/k8s-minikube/storage-provisioner:v5
* Enabled addons: storage-provisioner, default-storageclass
* Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube" cluster and "default" namespace by default
Now verify minikube status
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> minikube status
minikube
type: Control Plane
host: Running
kubelet: Running
apiserver: Running
kubeconfig: Configured
I don't know kubernetes as I am learning it, but it appears to have worked. I hope this will be useful to someone so they do not have to go off and spend $99 to upgrade to Windows Pro - as I was going to do if this did not work.
Update: Here is a link with more details How to run Kubernetes on Windows 11