Chocolatey: A Windows Package Manager? 

Engagement! Engagement! Engagement! Engagement!

Oh sweet, thanks for the launchy tip, the start menu in win 10 is a dumpster fire 🔥🗑

Yes lord Wendell, I shall express my smugness for being a linux user.

Good lord how did I not know about this?!?! Videos like this are why you guys are my favorite tech channel!!

It may not be fair, but at least you still have your glasses!

Wendel's surface book died as I got mine. Did my one steal his' soul?

"A Ryzen 5 lifts all boats" - genius.

Doesn't ninite update all the apps in the executable file if they're already installed? If so, would it be possible to have a script run it during start up/any set time and/or with a macro command?

4:59 WHAT SCRIPT I MUST KNOW!

Neat. My Surface Pro 3, Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5, and shitty old Lenovo all run Linux though. #LinuxMasterRace RIP your Surface, buddy. Pressing F to pay respects right now.

Looks like Choco has come a long way since I looked at it several years ago in its early days. Back then all it did was download the installer and run it with default options. I've been using mys2, which comes with the pacman package manager from Arch. It's nice, especially for libraries, but it doesn't have nearly as much stuff as Choco. Edit: the lack of package signing is a serious omission.

As a *Level1* sysadmin without GPO access, I have a hard time updating apps, as my superiors are busy with other stuff. I don't use a package manager on the PCs I maintain, I am the package manager. I -hunt- search for installers myself (preferably .msi files, thanks God that Frontmotion Firefox exists) and update my silent installer batch file myself. Then I just update the apps on some PCs that I get to remote into by running the .bat file, if somebody has problems. I keep file versioning in log files on the PCs, so the batch file knows what to update. Wish I would have my privileges elevated, it would make my life a heck of a lot easier and with more peace of mind.

They can pry windows 7 out of my cold dead hands....

When i saw this video popup in my list i jumped on it because i was looking at Chocolatey, but the video was a bit disappointing. Most of the content is talking about how Windows 10 sucks, with just a small portion actually talking about using Chocolaty as a solution. I don't need a video to tell me Windows 10 sucks (imo it's not that bad), that's already know, i want information about a solution.

pfft, just package everything in your local hydrated hyper-v SCCM instance and deploy with a task sequence! You're up and running in 3-5 days, tops. For real though, my only issue with choco is it's usage of shims. While functionally similar to the native installed application, I'm old and like .exes to be in their folders.

Small tip; there's a shorthand for installing and auto accepting agreements, eg. - cinst -y launchy

You talk a lot about wasting users time, yet it takes 4 minutes for you to get to the main purpose of the video. Kind of ironic to me.

After dabbling in various Linux distros and being overwhelmed , Windows 10 pushed me hard into Linux, and I have never looked back. I even converted my wife's laptop over and she has done fine with LibreOffice and Thunderbird.

Omfg, finally Wendell does a video on Chocolatey!!! This makes Windows 10 so much more useable! Also being able to just execute a pkg update command is just wonderful. *insert full REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE here*

Is there a way to package together different packages, as a Chocolatey user, and then have the ability to install all of those packages with one line by referencing that one mother-package? e.g. "mother-package = firefox, git, launchy, vlc", "choco install mother-package" "Firefox, Git, Launchy and VLC have been successfully installed"

chocolatey also has a pretty good GUI so you don't even need to know what programs are in the repositories. github.com/chocolatey/ChocolateyGUI Oh and if you don't like the win10 startmenu (i don't like it either) just use an alternative like startisback.

really enjoyed this video, thanks!

Ive used Ninite for years on fresh installs, noticed someone mentioning this chocolatey in the comments on another video, and now i see you've been spreading the word :) Will definitely try it out

Chocolatey is really the best thing since sliced bread, saves so much time setting up my developer machines 👍

On my old laptop I had the Ninite installer configured to run weekly. It then downloaded and installed updated versions automatically if they are available. Forgot how to do it, though.

I use Chocolatey for 4 years, the time it saves on me is massive

as a linux user. look at my smug frog face

Good to see you show of Chocolatey, been using it for years now. About settings, the best method I've found to keep your desired configuration is to record changes as registry keys, group policies or PS commands. Every time I'm setting up Windows I log all commands or changes I do so I can re-produce the same setup. PS: gotta love it when booting Windows and trying to get work done and the first thing it does is wasting your time while it's updating.

0:02 Oh no not your Nintendo Surface Book!

I am so confused... Why do you not request a refund for the copy of Windows shipped with the laptop?

It's interesting to see Microsoft building their own package manager for Windows. I'm curious how this will compare to Chocolatey eventually once we see a v1 release of the new 'winget' package manager. I've published an overview video of the new Windows Package Manager over on my channel.

Would love to see a multi-computer management tutorial with Chocolatey and Ansible on the Enterprise Channel.

I don't care much for Linux desktop but their package managers are way better than this shit. I like just clicking install on a gui without opening a browser.

If you could show some automation with this so it installs everything after Win install with options etc. with one command/script why not, but now... IDK man... Plus I guess one would have to unsinall all things one has to then reinstall them with choco right?

Literally started using it, it's incredible I reinstall Windows all the time, because it tends to break something, most often involving settings, language packs or dll patches for themes or a combination of those [Or windows update, the worst update system I've ever seen]. With this I save like an hour+ of work. It installs DirectX, runtimes [VC, Java, etc.], tools [From 7zip to bulk rename utility], most browsers [Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Chromium,...] and most other software tends to be available just have to look up the package name on their site, probably has a cmd for it, but I'm too dumb to do it that way. You just run the install script and then you can make one huge .bat file to run install on all the things you always need in one go and it'll do it for you. Don't care how dangerous that is, windows will likely break before it can do harm. Highly recommend it to anyone who does windows installs frequently or just wants something to auto-update the apps like linux can. Great video Wendell 👍 I can't wait for the settings management video, haven't done that yet. Also did Wendell say Nintendo Surface Book :D ? Is that why it has the detachable keyboard .... everything makes sense now.

Preferences preferences preferences

Well this was adorable , actually its not too bad. I recently purchased a similar Lenovo machine and it came with the Intel Optane SSD. I wanted to install Linux , but everything I am reading is yelling at me saying that Optane does not play nice with Linux. I hope someone tells me thats bad information. Also recently I went through the process of getting Docker working on Windows 10 Home, apparently it was only intended to be ran on Windows 10 Pro. So I had to install three utilities just to have Docker run properly which was pretty annoying. I discovered a service called Turbo , which more or less is Docker with some other very cool features. From what I understand its used a lot in enterprise with paid subscriptions. Its verbatim the same commands and flags as Docker except anywhere you would type Docker 'Docker ps -a' you would instead type 'turbo ps -a' 'turbo run ' it instantly creates containers in windows-CMD and runs them graphically. I've figured out the same thing in Docker (linux) recently by sharing the Linux hosts Xserver,DISPLAY, and host network driver containers can act as native desktop applications. Turbo also has a desktop application that you can sign into your User from any computer and it gives you a draw with all of your containers in a graphical 'Playable' format. Like with the application Cameyo you would actually record/snapshot an apps installation and be able to make it portable , this is the same except its recorded upon install and saved to the Turbo cloud. So for anyone having to use windows These two utilities are very useful. Adding Chocolatey to the mix improves the Windows 10 experience in a big way. Even on Windows I must have Linux so I downloaded Debian from the MS store , and installed a desktop environment and xrdp. The service runs on localhost:3390 all I have to do is open RDP and connect to 127.0.0.1:3390 and Im on my Debian desktop no virtual machine overhead involved . It was easier then messing with Xming and Xlaunch, and actually makes the WSL useful. Before that I was using X11 forwarding & Xming to use graphical Linux apps with the MS store versions of Linux. With all this and OpenSSH being available in the optional features Windows is borderline useful. What does that say about them that I had to go this far to make the Desktop Experience like Linux to be able to use it, they need to evolve or die.

I use both Windows and Linux on a daily basis, and although I will still maintain that for most people, Windows allows you to do a lot, very easily, and has much better support for the kinds of things the average user does (including myself in my free time). But I also have to admit that I feel a little jealous every time I type sudo apt install and seeing it just magically happen in front of me on Linux. It is a magical thing, and it works remarkably well. The whole dependency tree being installed for you, and more importantly (this is something that just flat-out does not happen on Windows), seeing dependencies removed when the root application is removed is also amazing. I don't think I would survive for long if I had to have Linux on my main machine as my main OS, but I hope that one day, it will have the hardware and software support that Windows has. It's good these days compared to what it used to be, but it's still a far cry from the genuine plug & play that Windows allows. Plus, I think Linux also suffers from the whole "Everything is equally hard to do" problem - you can do very complex and powerful things on Linux, and it's not all that hard - but it's also too hard to do very simple things, like ... something as trivial as creating a desktop shortcut. It should not be that hard, on ANY desktop distro. But it is. On the contrary, doing simple things in Windows is, as it should be, simple - but doing complex things on Windows is fucking atrociously difficult and inconsistent and broken. This dichotomy is why Windows still exists, yet it's also why Windows is still horrible as a power user.

My two greatest tools to setup Windows PCs are: 1. WSUS Offline Update and 2. Chocolatey (I've been a computer tech for 30+ yrs). Thx for the video.

Should add the feature to selectively lzx compress certain installs. Things like libre office drop more than 50% in size. and software which hides its preferences in terrible places, oracle virtualbox which breaks unless you edit a configuration file with your new computers path name and sandboxie, which hides a config file in the windows directory. and since microsoft isn't free software, i'd rather not see them handle everything. and the startmenu is a little better once you block websearch results using win10privacy, haven't used launchy since win7, guess i'll look it up again.

Rebel Unix propaganda .... where's my dusting robot ? use your skills to be productive

Jesus, I wish I'd known about this when I was doing a bunch of windows installs/reinstalls for myself as well as family/friends. I'd gotten to where I'd just made a command line script for silent installing the essential stuff like 7zip while still having to keep all the installer files up to date manually. This is muuuch easier. Could even just add that powershell command to the post-install commands in NTlite.

Would this or any package manager work with software from more obscure and brain-damaged developers, like Native Instruments? Installing their software from a fresh image can take days and that's not an exaggeration. There are hundreds of plug-ins and libraries, and each one takes 10-20min to install, requiring user input in the first steps and with no option to use pre-existing data and just refresh the registry. To make matters worse, their updater stupidly relies on both the registry and hidden files stored in the default windows temp directory, so your version can easily become broken and impossible to update without re-installation if you habitually purge temps now and then. Really, is there an anti-stupidity package manager that could collect all these ridiculous dependencies and build a package to bypass the installers entirely?

Skip to 3:45... jesus christ ...the irony of you rightfully complaining about your time being wasted, while wasting ours with that dragging introduction

Windows already has a reliable way of backing up settings offline. Its called the registry editor. I have a .reg file containing all of my settings that I run every time I reinstall Windows. You can edit .reg files with notepad or the command prompt. Its not like Linux where you have hundreds (maybe thousands?) of settings files scattered throughout the hard drive and you need a program to manage it. Its clean and simple in Windows, just the way it should be.

Is this a joke is Microsoft going to ditch Windows and move completely to Linux. can you not update windows doing this ... sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade if not why not.

Built by nerd, for nerds. Thanks Wendell. This will be handy when I eventually need to upgrade to Win 10.

Paid softwares should really care about users other US and maybe Europe....i mean the charge for theses softwares are ridiculous in developing countries or countries that have a payment that isn't related to dollars....that's why I thank the pirates many times...corportaes need to put the huge many fees and vampiring aside if they really want development.

The Gnome launcher is incredibly slow and most launchers don't account for mistypes, which Windows does. Also, Launchy looks like ass.

yea, that's great and all when you know what you want, and and spell it correctly, and know it exists... never had installers that I would say waste my time, an initial setup has install drivers (yay the taichi win7 drivers are no longer online, I have to use cd drivers or nothing and can't find my cd) and a few programs I consider required, one of which is an old enterprise version of winrar as its no bs and not horrible ui, acdsee from around 15 years ago, and a new version, then steam and the other usual suspects. never really considered any of this a waste of time as I can faily painlessly do other stuff too. chrome is just the biggest pain in my ass to reinstall, but thankfully copy pasting folders tends to work good enough.

Oh God, you must be my soulmate. I sometimes feel like the only person caring for setting every toggle and every switch and reading about fun about:config tricks and registry entries... Formatting and re-installing? That's my IT nightmare, especially since I don't even remember everything that I set up sometimes many many moons ago. I recently started actually logging changes like application paths (where they store their data, like libraries) and settings and all that, but it's just a first step to being less dependent on backups gracefully restoring whenever it may be needed in the future.

Used choco for configuring servers at one point. Would not recommend to use it for everything. Packages are as good as the creators write the scripts for them. Some are awful, some you find they are awful too late. Be careful. For desktop use it's quite awesome though.

Hey, no mention of scoop? is waaaay better and so much easier than chocolatey. Is like homebrew but for Windows. In it, you can make your configuration files portable through folders called persist. Heck, you can even use it in Windows 7 through the new PowerShell core without admin rights.

Loved that bit at the end.

I prefer vivaldi as a browser in this case. Its chrome underneath but it asks you if you want to update. Also im sick of the 'you clicked shutdown, lets save all your stuff so you can continu next time' no windows! If i hit shutdown just do what i tell you, close all the programs, dont make me hit more buttons because yes i am shure i want to shut down and start up cleanly next time!

most linux DEs have a quick launcher on alt+space or alt+f2, not just gnome - windows is the only system with a heavy UI that doesn't as far as I know.

If windows could be as easy as apt update && apt upgrade transparently in the background, that would take care of about 90% of my complaints

nice vid. how can i change install options (for example some installers will have a ticked checkbox to install yahoo startpage; or i will have the options to check/uncheck file extensions to be connected with the software to be installed; or other install options...)

5:24 copying shell commands from websites is dangerous because it's possible to highlight, copy & execute hidden parts of them. Thanks, CSS.

With ninite if you want to update all your apps, all you have to do is run the installer again. While thats still suboptimal, it can still do it in the free version.

You are the reason why we regress in visual, component-like code development. Using terminal makes developers unimaginitive. You having it easier, makes other people lives harder.

What's the difference between launch and pressing the windows key and typing what you are looking for?

The only thing better than Chocolatey is an up to date drive image. I hate re-installing Windows ... says the guy that works in IT. I always have to much to do and not enough time and resources to do it. I should change my name to Sisyphus.

Regarding ninite: paid version does that automatically. The installer automatically downloads latest version, so running it fter a while will install updated version of software

Does it feel better than HomeBrew??? I'm hella curious now... Oh, and engagement engagement engagement engagement engagement engagement

I don't understand why people have gripes and say package manager is the shit . I don't get it I'm a Mac user and don't see what's the big deal of a package manager buts that because I don't know what I'm missing

LOL I was gonna comment about Ninite, God damn you've got 20/20 foresight!

Why would I use vanila Launchy vs windows key (you know, just pressing windows key, type and then press enter)?

Level1Techs One comment on ninite : You can keep your ninite installer and each time you run it again, it will install updates and skip all updated software :)

I would settle for windows not fucking with my settings , that would do . And give us back the windows 7 shell . That would be cool.

Like for the Twilight Zone reference. (Is this enough engagement?)

I prefer Keypirinha to Launchy, but it's probably a little bit harder to configure.

Can you tell me one thing, Chocolatey GUI's feature "Show download progress" is not working for me

Engagement! I'm still wondering if multiple comments from a single individual add to the ~engagement counter~

after installing and setting up the config file of an application you export the settings, after reeinstalling or new installation you just import the settings file. i don't get it, in what way is linux managing the config files better than windows? so whats the deal?

That Twilight Zone joke at the end was amazing xD

I tried chocolatey a long time ago and it seemed terrible to me. Maybe it has made a lot of progress since then. Maybe I should give it another look. Thanks for reminding me to do so.

What is that windows update script? I need that script! I didn't know that was even possible..

I will have to take a look at launchy, my install seems to not want to find any installed apps when searching. I have resorted to desktop icons again like wits windows xp

nice usage explanation for Chocolatey.. Thanks..

I just made a PowerShell script that sets all my preferences and downloads and installs all my software 👌

Was this video scripted? Seemed to flow better.... Keep it up boys n' girl! Lol

Love Ninite to setup all the basic apps needed on new rigs for clients. Just pukes all the basic needed apps.

My go-to for setting up a new windows machine: Boxstarter & Chocolatey

With this and Ninite, I should have all things covered. installing Chocolatey now.

Ninite is a OneGet/Nuget/Chocolatey package manager . . .

"Microsoft if you're listening..." Don't worry, they're not.

but they need to know everything about you so they can sell your information, so they reset your settings to be able to steal your info constantly

Thoughts on Wox + Everything plugin vs Launchy?

I found ninite.com extremely useful when doing fresh installs of windows.

I've always used Ninite but this does look quite useful

That outro too xD

What happend to your Surface Book? I own one and now i‘m scared :o

this is a meme, if you want package management, just use an OS that already has it and do not port it to Windows

Never knew about this, gonna nuke and pave my system and start using this.

I've been using ninite for a while, need to check this out. Also, Aqua teen!

Why even bother using Windows then? What does Wendell even need Windows for at this point?

Hey Wendell...where do you want to go today?! haha good one oldie goldie MS marketing

Can it install all your drivers. Driver install packages are crap in my opinion.

I enjoy ninite for installing software on new machines.