Docker Desktop Updates & Release Notes

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2026-02-02</em>

Updates

• Linux kernel v6.12.67
• Docker Compose v5.0.2
• Docker Sandbox v0.10.1
• Docker Buildx v0.31.1

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Added Neo4j as a known publisher to the Docker MCP Catalog.
• Fixed an issue where the Models tab would crash when displaying requests made via the Anthropic Messages API.

For Mac

• Fixed an issue where shared file permissions could be unintentionally modified when using DockerVMM. Fixes docker/for-mac#7830.

For Windows

• Fixed an issue where container secrets injection could fail with docker-pass.
• Temporarily disabled VHDX compaction for the WSL data disk to improve stability.

Security

• Fixed a security issue in enhanced container isolation where Docker socket mount permissions could be bypassed when using the --use-api-socket flag.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2026-01-26</em>

New

• A new version of Docker Sandboxes is now available on Docker Desktop. It provides a secure, isolated, microVM-based environment for running coding agents.

Updates

• Linux kernel v6.12.65
• Credential helpers v0.9.5
• Docker Engine v29.1.5

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Docker Model Runner now exposes an Anthropic-compatible API.
• Docker Desktop now supports UTF-8 BOM for admin-settings.json and registry.json.
• Fixed an issue where admin settings incorrectly changed user proxy settings after a restart.

[!IMPORTANT]

Starting with Docker Desktop version 4.59, installing an update from the tray menu will proceed without opening the Docker Desktop Dashboard.

For Mac

• Fixed a bug where shared file permissions could be modified inadvertently while using DockerVMM on macOS. Fixes docker/for-mac#7830.

For Windows

• Fixed an issue where the installer failed because of special ACLs set on ProgramData.

Security

• Updated Kubernetes images to address CVEs.
  • Kind:
    • docker/desktop-containerd-registry-mirror:v0.0.3
    • docker/desktop-cloud-provider-kind:v0.5.0 …

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2026-01-19</em>

Security

• Fixed CVE-2025-14740 where the Docker Desktop for Windows installer contained multiple incorrect permission assignment vulnerabilities in the handling of the C:\ProgramData\DockerDesktop directory.

New

• Docker Desktop now has a new issue tracker for all platforms at https://github.com/docker/desktop-feedback. Relevant, actively discussed issues from the previous platform-specific trackers will be migrated.

Updates

• Docker Compose v5.0.1

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Improved alignment of the Ask Gordon streaming indicator so it stays in sync with content on large screens.
• Fixed a bug where docker debug failed on containers started with environment variables but no '='. For example, docker run -e NONEXISTENT_ENV_VAR.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2026-01-12</em>

New

• Docker Desktop now includes Docker Compose v5 which introduces a new official Go SDK. This SDK provides a comprehensive API that lets you integrate Compose functionality directly into your applications, allowing you to load, validate, and manage multi-container environments without relying on the Compose CLI. For more information, see the Compose SDK docs.

Updates

• containerd v2.2.1
• Docker Compose v5.0.0
• Docker Agent v1.18.6

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Fixed a panic in filesharing tests when containers don't have an IP address immediately after starting.
• Added support for custom DNS entries in the LinuxKit VM with the ExtraDNSEntries configuration field.

For Windows

• Fixed a bug on Windows where removing the state directory would fail because log files were still open.

• Fixed installations from the Microsoft Store wrongly advertizing a new update.

• Fixed a crash when running /sbin/ldconfig in ubuntu:22.04 ARM64 containers by upgrading QEMU from 8.1.5 to 10.0.4. This resolves a known issue reported in docker/for-win#15004.

  [!NOTE] …

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-12-16</em>

Updates

• Docker Engine v29.1.3
• Docker Agent v1.15.1

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Fixed an issue that caused Docker Desktop to get stuck during startup.
• Improved the error message when the daemon.json is invalid.
• Fixed performance issues on every keystroke within a long Ask Gordon session.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Kubernetes in kubeadm mode from starting up when an organization has configured Registry Access Management to block Docker Hub.

[!IMPORTANT]

Wasm workloads will be deprecated and removed in a future Docker Desktop release.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-12-04</em>

New

• Added support for vLLM in Docker Model Runner on Windows with WSL2 and NVIDIA GPUs.

Bug fixes and enhancements

For Mac

• Fixed a bug where /dev/shm did not have enough permission for containers to write into. Fixes docker/for-mac#7804.

Upgrades

• Docker Buildx v0.30.1
• Docker Engine v29.1.2
• Runc v1.3.4
• Docker Model Runner CLI v1.0.2

Security

• Added a security patch to address CVE-2025-13743 where Docker Desktop diagnostics bundles were found to include expired Hub PATs in log output due to error object serialization.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-11-27</em>

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Fixed an issue where the Support Diagnostics tooling inadvertently captured expired Docker Hub authorization bearer tokens.

Security

• Added security patches to address CVEs 2025-52565, 2025-52881, and 2025-31133 when using Enhanced Container Isolation.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-11-20</em>

New

• Added new port binding settings to Docker Desktop. This can also be controlled by administrators via Settings Management using the admin-settings.json file.
• Added a new Docker Model Runner command. With docker model purge you can remove all your models.

Upgrades

• Docker Engine v29.0.0
• Docker Model Runner v1.0.3
• Docker Model Runner CLI v1.0.0
• Docker MCP plugin v0.28.0

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Docker MCP Toolkit improvements:
  • Amazon Q client support
  • OAuth DCR (Dynamic Client Registration) with Docker Engine
  • Create MCP profiles using the CLI
• Docker Model Runner improvements:
  • You can now skip the /engines prefix for Docker Model Runner's OpenAI API endpoint curl http://localhost:12434/v1/models.
  • You can now skip the ai/ prefix for the models published on Docker Hub with docker model pull.
  • Downloads are now resumed when they get interrupted.

For Windows

• Fixed an issue with Kerberos/NTLM proxy sign in.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-11-06</em>

New

• Dynamic MCP(Experimental) is now available in Docker Desktop .
• Introduced a new Welcome Survey to improve onboarding. New users can now provide information to help tailor their Docker Desktop experience.

Upgrades

• Docker Compose v2.40.3
• NVIDIA Container Toolkit v1.18.0

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Docker Desktop now detects and attempts to avoid clashes between the "Docker subnet" and physical networks using RFC1918 addresses. For example if the host has a non-default route which overlaps with 192.168.65.0/24 then an alternative network will be chosen automatically. You can still override the choice as before via Docker Desktop settings and admin settings.
• Docker Desktop no longer treats Stargz Snapshotter failures as fatal. If a failure occurs, Docker Desktop continues to run without the Stargz Snapshotter.
• Ask Gordon no longer displays images with user provided URLs.
• Ask Gordon now asks for confirmation before running all built-in and all user added MCP tools.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-10-23</em>

[!IMPORTANT]

Support for Windows 10 21H2 (19044) and 11 22H2 (22621) has ended. Installing Docker Desktop will require Windows 10 22H2 (19045) or Windows 11 23H2 (22631) in the next release.

Security

• Fixed CVE-2025-9164 where the Docker Desktop for Windows installer was vulnerable to DLL hijacking due to insecure DLL search order. The installer searches for required DLLs in the user's Downloads folder before checking system directories, allowing local privilege escalation through malicious DLL placement.

New

• Docker Agent is now available through Docker Desktop.
• Docker Debug is now free for all users.

Upgrades

• Docker Engine v28.5.1
• Docker Compose v2.40.2
• NVIDIA Container Toolkit v1.17.9
• Docker Debug v0.0.45

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Fixed an issue where Docker Desktop used an expired proxy password while waiting for the user to enter a new one.
• Fixed a 'chown' error shown on startup with Docker Debug.
• Fixed a bug that caused some forwarded UDP ports to hang.

For Mac …

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-10-09</em>

[!IMPORTANT]

Support for macOS 13 has ended. Installing Docker Desktop will require macOS 14 in the next release.

New

• You can now specify PAC files and Embedded PAC scripts with installer flags for macOS and Windows.
• Administrators can set proxy settings via macOS configuration profiles.

Upgrades

• Docker Compose v2.40.0
• Docker Buildx v0.29.1
• Docker Engine v28.5.1
• Docker MCP plugin v0.22.0
• Docker Model CLI v0.1.42

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Fixed an issue where kind cluster state is sometimes reset when Desktop restarts. Fixes docker/for-mac#77445.
• Removed the obsolete mcp key to align with the latest VS Code MCP server changes.
• Update credential helpers to v0.9.4. …

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-09-25</em>

Security

• Fixed CVE-2025-10657 where the Enhanced Container Isolation Docker Socket command restrictions feature was not working properly in Docker Desktop 4.46.0 only (the configuration for it was being ignored).

New

• Added dynamic MCP server discovery and support to Docker's MCP catalog.
• With Enhanced Container Isolation, administrators can now block docker plugin and docker login commands in containers with Docker socket mounts.
• Added a new Docker Model Runner command. With docker model requests you can fetch requests and responses.

Upgrades

• Docker Compose v2.39.4
• Kubernetes v1.34.1
  • CNI plugins v1.7.1
  • cri-tools v1.33.0
  • cri-dockerd v0.3.20
• Docker Debug v0.0.44

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• You can now search for MCP servers more easily with filters, sorting, and improved search functionality. …

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-09-11</em>

New

• Added a new Learning center walkthrough for Docker MCP Toolkit and other onboarding improvements.
• Administrators can now control PAC configurations with Settings Management.
• The update experience has been redesigned to make it easier to understand and manage updates for Docker Desktop and its components.

Upgrades

• Docker Buildx v0.28.0
• Docker Engine v28.4.0

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• With the Docker CLI, you can now set the GODEBUG environment variable when the key-value pair ("GODEBUG":"...") exists inside the Docker context metadata. This means certificates that have negative serial numbers in the CLI binaries are supported by default.
• Updated the Docker Subscription Service Agreement link to point to the latest version.

For Mac

• Improved the security of Docker Model Runner by enabling sandboxing of the llama.cpp inference processes.
• Fixed a bug which caused Docker Desktop to start slowly and appear frozen. Fixes docker/for-mac#7671.

For Windows

• Improved the security of Docker Model Runner by enabling sandboxing of the llama.cpp inference processes.

For Linux …

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-08-28</em>

New

• Docker Model Runner is now generally available.

Upgrades

• Docker Compose v2.39.2
• Docker Buildx v0.27.0
• Docker Scout CLI v1.18.3
• Docker Engine v28.3.3

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Fixed a bug that caused the com.docker.diagnose to crash when uploading a diagnostics bundle behind a proxy that requires authentication.
• The kind dependency image envoyproxy/envoy was upgraded from v1.32.0 to v1.32.6. If you mirror kind images, ensure your mirrors are updated.

For Mac

• Fixed a bug that caused Docker Desktop to crash after the laptop woke from sleep. Fixes docker/for-mac#7741.
• Fixed an issue where the VM would sometimes fail with the error The virtual machine stopped unexpectedly.
• Fixed a bug that would break port mappings when a container was connected to or disconnected from a network after it was started. Fixes docker/for-mac#7693.

For Windows …

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-08-20</em>

Security

• Fixed CVE-2025-9074 where a malicious container running on Docker Desktop could access the Docker Engine and launch additional containers without requiring the Docker socket to be mounted. This could allow unauthorized access to user files on the host system. Enhanced Container Isolation (ECI) does not mitigate this vulnerability.

Bug fixes and enhancements

• Fixed a bug which caused the Docker Offload dialog to block users from accessing the dashboard.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-08-13</em>

Download Docker Desktop:

• Windows
• Windows ARM Early Access
• Mac (Apple chip)
• Mac (Intel chip)
• Linux (Debian)
• Linux (RPM)
• Linux (Arch)

Bug fixes and enhancements

For all platforms

• Fixed an issue found in version 4.44.0 that caused startup to fail when vpnkit CIDR is locked without specifying a value in Desktop Settings Management.

For Windows

• Fixed an issue where volumes and containers were not visible after an upgrade from distributions using the legacy version-pack-data directory structure.
• Resolved a rare issue in WSL 2 where the Docker CLI failed with a Proxy Authentication Required error.
• Fixed a bug where CLI plugins were not deployed to ~/.docker/cli-plugins if the user lacked execution permissions on that directory.

<em class="text-gray-400 italic dark:text-gray-500">2025-08-07</em>

New

• WSL 2 stability improvements.
• You can now inspect requests and responses to help you diagnose model-related issues in Docker Model Runner.
• Added the ability to run multiple models and receive a warning on insufficient resources. This avoids Docker Desktop freezing when using big models.
• Added new MCP clients to the MCP Toolkit: Gemini CLI, Goose.
• Introduced --gpu (Windows only) and --cors flags for docker desktop enable model-runner.
• Added a new docker desktop kubernetes command to the Docker Desktop CLI.
• You can now search for specific configuration options within Settings.
• Apple Virtualization is now the default VMM for better performance and QEMU Virtualization is removed. See blog post.
• Performance and stability improvements to the DockerVMM.

Upgrades

• Docker Compose v2.39.1
• Docker Buildx v0.26.1
• Docker Engine v28.3.2
• Docker Scout CLI v1.18.2
• Docker Model CLI v0.1.36
• Docker Desktop CLI v0.2.0

Security …