This blog post is a summary of my own experience for Sitecore Experience Platform 10.3 Initial Release (e.g Sitecore 10.3.0) installation on my machine with the following install guide:

• Installation Guide for Developer Workstation with Containers (Thanks Sitecore team!)

Prerequisites

• Windows 10 1903 or later
  • If you need to enable process isolation, you must have Windows 10 1909 or later.
• Windows Server 1903 or later
• >= 16 Gb of memory
• Sitecore 10 license file
• the latest Docker Desktop

Step-by-step Guide

1. ensure to set up your docker environment by following https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/developers/103/developer-tools/set-up-the-environment.html
2. try to bypass some common network issues by setting DNS servers in the Docker engine configuration:
   • open Docker Desktop and then select Settings => Docker Engine
   • ensure the value of the "dns" key is set to ["8.8.8.8"] if any
   • click Apply & Restart button
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3. to avoid any conflicts, we should ensure the following ports are not being used by another process: 443, 8079, 8984, and 14330 (Page 6 in Installation Guide for Developer Workstation with Containers)
   •  
   • stop IIS
     • 
   • stop windows services if any
   • quit Skype for sure
4. create a new folder D:\sc1030_install
5. download and unzip Container Deployment Package
6. run script to prepare for deployment and initialize the environment file of  Windows Server Core version ltsc2019 and XP Single topology (xp0)
   • adjust D:\sc1030_install\SitecoreContainerDeployment.10.3.0.008463.1135\compose\ltsc2019\xp0\compose-init.ps1 if necessary
   • 
   • assume that this file C:\license\license.xml is available
   • open Windows PowerShell (run as administrator)
   • change directory to D:\sc1030_install\SitecoreContainerDeployment.10.3.0.008463.1135\compose\ltsc2019\xp0
   • execute .\compose-init.ps1 -LicenseXmlPath C:\license\license.xml
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7.  let’s pull all the required images from the Sitecore Container Registry, create the required Docker network configuration, and deploy all the containers to the local environment.
   • open Windows PowerShell (run as administrator)
   • change directory to D:\sc1030_install\SitecoreContainerDeployment.10.3.0.008463.1135\compose\ltsc2019\xp0
   • execute docker-compose up --detach
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8. open a browser, navigate to https://xp0cm.localhost/, we would see the default Sitecore page and a valid SSL certificate
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9. open a browser, navigate to https://xp0cm.localhost/sitecore, we should be able to login with the admin user and b password by default
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10. DON’T FORGET to perform the following thing as well (Page 12 in Installation Guide for Developer Workstation with Containers)
    • 

Notes

1. for stopping the Sitecore instances without losing the changes
   • open Windows PowerShell (run as administrator)
   • change directory to D:\sc1030_install\SitecoreContainerDeployment.10.3.0.008463.1135\compose\ltsc2019\xp0
   • execute  docker-compose stop
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   • start the Sitecore instances again by executing  docker-compose start
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2. for data cleanup
   • download clean.ps1 and then put it into D:\sc1030_install\SitecoreContainerDeployment.10.3.0.008463.1135\compose\ltsc2019\xp0
     • Note: the original file is of Sitecore Docker Examples 
   • open Windows PowerShell (run as administrator)
   • change directory to D:\sc1030_install\SitecoreContainerDeployment.10.3.0.008463.1135\compose\ltsc2019\xp0
   • execute  docker-compose down
   • execute  .\clean
   • 

Happy Sitecore 10.3 Initial Release Installation!