Visual Studio Container Tools requires Docker to be running before building, debugging or running a containerized project

The problem occurs because Visual studio container is unable to connect to docker for windows and solution for this is to open the visual studio 2017 from Docker CLI using following command. /c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Microsoft\ Visual\ Studio/2017/Community/Common7/IDE/devenv.exe C:\\PATH\\TO\\MY\\SOLUTION.sln

Here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe

is the location of my devenv.exe file and 2nd parameter

C:\\PATH\\TO\\MY\\SOLUTION.sln

shows the path of solution file.

For further details of this solution, click Here.

In my case I had an erroneous reference in Dependencies > Packages to Microsoft.VisualStudio.Azure.Containers.Tools.Targets

Removing the reference fixed the error.