Comment by okanat

You are. Docker Desktop supports two different container platforms: usual Linux ones and Windows Containers.

With the former a Linux kernel is required. You have two options: using WSL2 and benefiting from all the optimizations and integrations that Microsoft made, or running a full Hyper-V VM that gives absolute control and isolation from rest of the system.

For the latter, you need a Pro license and need to enable Containers feature (deployment requires more expensive Server licenses). Then you can run slimmed down Windows images like "nano server" which doesn't have GUI APIs.