What is RunContainer?
RunContainer is a Windows application management and isolation tool. With it, you install and run Windows applications inside environments that RunContainer manages, instead of installing them directly onto your PC as ordinary standalone desktop applications.
Current release
RunContainer is available now: 0.8.0 is the current stable release for Windows. See Downloads for the installer and its checksum.
Watch first
New here? Watch the tour
New to RunContainer? The official video walks through the interface, installing an application, the per-app profiles and the containment backends — in a few minutes.
To support the project, subscribe to the RunContainer YouTube channel and join the Discord server. Subscribing costs nothing and is the easiest way to help; the Discord is where questions, bug reports and compatibility notes get answered.
The simplest way to think about it
RunContainer is an app that opens other apps inside itself.
You add a Windows application, press Run, and it opens in a window inside RunContainer — not as another stand-alone app on your desktop — with its own files, settings and limits. That's the whole concept; everything else in these docs is detail on top of it.
Simulation
An app that opens apps inside itself
That is the whole idea. RunContainer is one window on your PC; the applications you add open inside it, each in its own environment, instead of becoming another stand-alone icon on your desktop.
Illustration · not a screen recording
Each app keeps its own files and settings in its own environment.
Any .exe is installed into its own environment — its files, its profile, its settings.
If you know LiveContainer on iOS
If you know LiveContainer on iOS, the idea is similar. LiveContainer lets apps run inside its own managed space instead of being installed on the device as normal apps. RunContainer applies the same idea to Windows applications. RunContainer is a separate project and isn't affiliated with LiveContainer.
What RunContainer is designed to help you do
- Keep applications organised. See which applications you've installed through RunContainer and which environment each one belongs to.
- Keep applications apart. Put applications in separate environments so that one application's changes are kept away from your everyday desktop and from other applications.
- Run and stop applications from one place. Launch an application in its environment, and stop it again when you're done.
- Clean up more easily. When you no longer need an application, clean-up focuses on its environment instead of files and settings scattered across your PC.
- Try things out more carefully. Use a dedicated environment to evaluate software before deciding whether to keep it. See Testing unfamiliar software.
What RunContainer is not
- Not an antivirus or malware scanner. It doesn't decide whether software is safe.
- Not a guarantee of security. Isolation reduces risk but doesn't remove it. Read Isolation is not a guarantee.
- Not universally compatible. Some Windows applications won't work inside a managed environment. See Known limitations.
Where to go next
- Concepts & terminology: the words used throughout these docs.
- How it differs: RunContainer compared with an ordinary installation.
- Getting started: what you need before you begin.