Using a Windows Docker Image/Container at GITHub workflow actions is not direct supported. But GITHub runners have a Docker installation, so Windows Docker Images can be used and managed. One disadvantage this has - acting on Docker needs mostly between 15 to more than 30 minutes, so have patience.

To use a Windows Runner you need to use the runs-on directive in your job. GITHub supports windows-2019 and windows-2022. So you can use images based on Micosoft Windows images with LTSC of 2019 and 2022.

The following sample uses a GITHub standard template for workflow. Here we configure a Runner windows-2019 for the official Microsoft .NET Framework SDK 4.8 image on Windows Server Core 2019 LTSC (mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/sdk:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019).

After standard checkout from GITHub we need the related environment variables which we store in a temporary file for use with docker. The next step is then the docker run it self. We start them interactive, take sure you use -i instead of -it which some times to see. Additional we want remove the running container after our run, so we use --rm. With --env-file we load the original environment from the temporary file into our docker environment. C:\TEMP directory will be used for exchange of data between the Runner and the Docker container. GITHub Runner checking the project out to drive D:. Docker doesn’t support a mapping of Windows drives into an image (also not with the VOLUME directive). So we use a workaround. First mapping the D: drive into the sub directory C:\TEMP\_DriveD of our Docker container. Inside the container we map sub directory C:\TEMP\_DriveD back to drive D: with the subst command. At last we can start a powershell direct command or a command file as argument to the -Command call of powershell.

As result from the workflow run you will see a section Copy environment for Docker with the forwarded environment. In another section Run at docker you will find the result of dir D:\ command and the output from the direct command for powershell - the content of enviroment variables GITHUB_REF, GITHUB_REF_NAME, GITHUB_WORKSPACE and RUNNER_WORKSPACE.

Section "Copy environment for Docker"

Section "Run at docker"

Section "Run at docker more output"

Content of GITHub workflow file

# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions

name: Windows Docker Image/Container based CI


# Controls when the workflow will run
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - '**'
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - '**'

  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel
jobs:
  # This workflow contains a single job called "build"
  build:
    # The type of runner that the job will run on
    runs-on: windows-2019
    # container: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/sdk:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019

    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
      # Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Copy environment for Docker
        shell: cmd
        run: |
             set GITHUB_ > %TEMP%\env.list.txt
             set RUNNER_ >> %TEMP%\env.list.txt
             type %TEMP%\env.list.txt

      - name: Run at docker
        shell: cmd
        run: >-
             docker
             run
             -i
             --rm
             --env-file %TEMP%\env.list.txt
             -v C:\TEMP:C:\TEMP
             -v D:\:C:\TEMP\_DriveD
             mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/sdk:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019
             cmd /S /C subst D: C:\TEMP\_DriveD &&
             cmd /S /C dir D:\ &&
             powershell -Command "Write-Output ""GITHUB_REF=$Env:GITHUB_REF`nGITHUB_REF_NAME=$Env:GITHUB_REF_NAME`nGITHUB_WORKSPACE=$Env:GITHUB_WORKSPACE`nRUNNER_WORKSPACE=$Env:RUNNER_WORKSPACE"""

File can be downloaded here.

Documentation

Workflow using Windows Docker Image/Container

Description of GITHub workflow file

Content of GITHub workflow file