I see no reasons to fail it on Windows. But there are a few points to check:

• init flag was added in version 3.7 and 2.2 of compose file, so, check if you have the correct version, the latest versions are 3.8 and 2.4 respectively
• init flag was needed for earlier versions of IRIS, and not needed anymore since version 2021.1

While Node-RED has lots of interesting nodes out of the box, it may make it useful in tasks where some features are not available in IRIS.

And it's a low-code tool, so, just drag-n-drop and connect nodes, with some configuration.

In addition to the demo described in the article, there is a simple flow for demonstration work with SQL.

And another demo, is mostly just for fun, to see how it's possible to create even some UI there.

With quite a complex flow like this

It was possible to create an interface like this

It allows, to create a new table in IRIS, and add some fields. For sure, too far from production use, but as a proof-of-concept.

All those demos are available in the repo.