Installing Docker Buildx on Windows without Docker Desktop

24 July 2025

If you don’t install Docker Desktop for windows but just install the cli tool manually (e.g. because your company doesn’t want to pay for it), it’s not obvious how you get plugins like buildx installed.

It turns out that it’s not actually that hard, just a bit manual:

  1. Download the latest Windows executable from the Github Release page. Look for the file the ends with windows-amd64.exe (e.g. buildx-v0.26.1.windows-amd64.exe).
  2. Rename the downloaded file to docker-buildx.exe.
  3. Copy the renamed file to %USERPROFILE%\.docker\cli-plugins, creating the directories if needed.
  4. Verify that it’s working by running docker buildx --help in your Windows Terminal.

I haven’t tested this for other plugins like docker compose, but I expect the procedure would be the same.