How to restart Docker Desktop after shutting down WSL?

Question

I installed Docker Desktop for Win10 Home. Everything went fine and I was able to start up minikube. Later I decided to stop Vmmem.exe because I wanted to play a game. Ran the following command:

wsl --shutdown

Now Vmmem.exe has stopped running but how do I restart it?

minikube start gives the following error

* minikube v1.22.0 on Microsoft Windows 10 Home Single Language 10.0.19041 Build 19041
* Using the docker driver based on existing profile

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/

wsl -l -v gives following

  NAME                   STATE           VERSION
* Ubuntu-20.04           Stopped         2
  docker-desktop-data    Stopped         2
  docker-desktop         Stopped         2

What am I missing here? Any help is much appreciated

Answer 1

1. Open Docker Desktop
2. Click 'Troubleshooting' icon in top bar (between settings and sign in)
3. Click 'Restart' (first option)

Now docker is restarted and you'll have it enabled in your wsl

Answer 2

Steps to run install and run docker daemon on WSL2

Installation steps:

1. Add the stable channel repository and upadte run below commad:

   sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
   sudo apt-get update -y

2.Install the latest Docker CE
  sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce

3.Add user to docker group to run docker using non root user.
  sudo usermod -aG docker $USER && newgrp docker

4. Run docker daemon:
   sudo dockerd

Optional steps:

5. Configure Docker to start on boot
    sudo systemctl enable docker.service
    sudo systemctl enable containerd.service
   

    TO disable this use below command:
    
    
    sudo systemctl disable docker.service
    sudo systemctl disable containerd.service