diff --git a/smoke-tests/src/test/java/io/opentelemetry/smoketest/AbstractTestContainerManager.java b/smoke-tests/src/test/java/io/opentelemetry/smoketest/AbstractTestContainerManager.java
index 72d767236e..7f997108fd 100644
--- a/smoke-tests/src/test/java/io/opentelemetry/smoketest/AbstractTestContainerManager.java
+++ b/smoke-tests/src/test/java/io/opentelemetry/smoketest/AbstractTestContainerManager.java
@@ -21,7 +21,10 @@ public abstract class AbstractTestContainerManager implements TestContainerManag
 
   protected Map<String, String> getAgentEnvironment(String jvmArgsEnvVarName) {
     Map<String, String> environment = new HashMap<>();
-    environment.put(jvmArgsEnvVarName, "-javaagent:/" + TARGET_AGENT_FILENAME);
+    // while modern JVMs understand linux container memory limits, they do not understand windows
+    // container memory limits yet, so we need to explicitly set max heap in order to prevent the
+    // JVM from taking too much memory and hitting the windows container memory limit
+    environment.put(jvmArgsEnvVarName, "-Xmx1g -javaagent:/" + TARGET_AGENT_FILENAME);
     environment.put("OTEL_BSP_MAX_EXPORT_BATCH_SIZE", "1");
     environment.put("OTEL_BSP_SCHEDULE_DELAY", "10ms");
     environment.put("OTEL_IMR_EXPORT_INTERVAL", "1000");