<p>I have Windows 11 Home (which does not allow Hyper-V, only Pro edition does).
Installed WSL2 and Docker Desktop.</p>
<p>Installed Minikube using Chocolatey but it refused to start.
Searching on SO, I found this advice in several posts, but it failed to work.</p>
<pre><code>PS C:\WINDOWS\system32&gt; docker system prune
WARNING! This will remove:
  - all stopped containers
  - all networks not used by at least one container
  - all dangling images
  - all dangling build cache

Are you sure you want to continue? [y/N] y
error during connect: In the default daemon configuration on Windows, the docker client must be run with elevated privileges to connect.: Post &quot;http://%2F%2F.%2Fpipe%2Fdocker_engine/v1.24/containers/prune&quot;: open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32&gt; minikube delete
* Removed all traces of the &quot;minikube&quot; cluster.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32&gt; minikube start --driver=docker
* minikube v1.25.2 on Microsoft Windows 11 Home 10.0.22000 Build 22000
* Using the docker driver based on user configuration

X Exiting due to PROVIDER_DOCKER_VERSION_EXIT_1: &quot;docker version --format -&quot; 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 &quot;http://%2F%2F.%2Fpipe%2Fdocker_engine/v1.24/version&quot;: open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified.
* Documentation: https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/drivers/docker/
</code></pre>

likejudo
<p>I thought of trying to have <em>Docker Desktop</em> already running <strong>before</strong> I start minikube.</p>
<p>From the Windows Start menu, I ran <em>Docker Desktop in Administrator mode</em>.</p>
<p>Now I ran the command again
to remove old stuff,</p>
<pre><code>PS C:\WINDOWS\system32&gt; minikube delete
* Removed all traces of the &quot;minikube&quot; cluster.
</code></pre>
<p>and now specify the docker driver</p>
<pre><code>PS C:\WINDOWS\system32&gt; minikube start --driver=docker
* minikube v1.25.2 on Microsoft Windows 11 Home 10.0.22000 Build 22000
* Using the docker driver based on user configuration
* Starting control plane node minikube in cluster minikube
* Pulling base image ...
    &gt; gcr.io/k8s-minikube/kicbase: 379.06 MiB / 379.06 MiB  100.00% 10.23 MiB p
* Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=3000MB) ...
* Preparing Kubernetes v1.23.3 on Docker 20.10.12 ...
  - kubelet.housekeeping-interval=5m
  - Generating certificates and keys ...
  - Booting up control plane ...
  - Configuring RBAC rules ...
* Verifying Kubernetes components...
  - Using image gcr.io/k8s-minikube/storage-provisioner:v5
* Enabled addons: storage-provisioner, default-storageclass
* Done! kubectl is now configured to use &quot;minikube&quot; cluster and &quot;default&quot; namespace by default
</code></pre>
<p>Now verify minikube status</p>
<pre class="lang-bash prettyprint-override"><code>PS C:\WINDOWS\system32&gt; minikube status
minikube
type: Control Plane
host: Running
kubelet: Running
apiserver: Running
kubeconfig: Configured
</code></pre>
<p>I don't know kubernetes as I am learning it, but it appears to have worked. I hope this will be useful to someone so they do not have to go off and spend $99 to upgrade to Windows Pro - as I was going to do if this did not work.</p>
<p><strong>Update</strong>: Here is a link with more details <a href="https://juwo.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">How to run Kubernetes on Windows 11</a></p>
