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Md. Fahim Bin Amin
Md. Fahim Bin Amin

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Package Manager for Windows

#windows #chocolatey #microsoft

What is a package manager?

A package manager is a collection of software tools which automates the process of installation, along with the upgrading and configuring process as well. Package manager is a common feature in Linux based operating system. Some common package manager for Unix/Linux based operating systems are: Dpkg, Yum, etc. However, in Windows, package manager was not that much common at all earlier, but Chocolatey has filled the gap afterward.

What is Chocolatey?

Chocolatey is basically a software management solution for the Windows operating system. Chocolatey implements the full package management techniques. It also allows us to version different items, manage their dependencies along with the installation order, It helps to improve the inventory management as well.
You can install mostly used necessary software on your Windows operating system directly using the Chocolatey package manager.

Pre-requisite for Chocolatey

Make sure that you have the following prerequisite:

  • Windows 7+ / Windows Server 2003+
  • PowerShell v2+ (minimum is v3 for install from this website due to TLS 1.2 requirement)
  • .NET Framework 4+ (the installation will attempt to install .NET 4.0 if you do not have it installed)(minimum is 4.5 for install from this website due to TLS 1.2 requirement)

Install Chocolatey

  • Open the PowerShell with the Administrator access by clicking on the Run as Administrator.
  • Enter the command and press on the Enter key. 
Get-ExecutionPolicy
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  • If it returns Restricted, then run the following command. 
Set-ExecutionPolicy AllSigned
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In the prompt, press A for All.

  • Run the following command afterward. 
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
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  • Wait for some time and let the process finishes. After finishing, you can check out the version of the Chocolatey by using the following command. 
choco --version
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  • You are good to go with the Chocolatey package manager.

Some Necessary Software You Can Install first Using Chocolatey

You can check for the software/packages you want to install from here. I prefer installing these as early as possible.

  • DirectX 
choco install -y directx
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  • Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime - all versions 1.0.1 
choco install -y vcreditst-all
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  • Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2021.007.20099 
choco install -y adobereader
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  • Google Chrome Web-browser 
choco install -y googlechrome
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  • 7Zip 
choco install -y 7zip.install
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  • Python 3.x 3.10.0 
choco install -y python3
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  • Git 
choco install -y git.install
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  • Node JS 
choco install -y nodejs.install
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  • VS Code 
choco install -y vscode
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  • Mozilla Thunderbird 
choco install -y thunderbird
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If you want to check the installed package list, then you can also do so by using the following command.

choco list --local-only
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Installed Package List

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Top comments (2)

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billturner profile image
Bill Turner •

Have you tried Winget at all yet? I'm curious how it works compared to chocolatey (which is all I've used so far).

Here's a link with info: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/p...

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fahimfba profile image
Md. Fahim Bin Amin •

Thanks for pointing that out. The answer is, Yes! I have used winget, but I didn't use that frequently as I feel comfortable in Chocolatey. Your comment has reminded me again about winget, and I think that I should definitely use that for sometime at least so that I can also get the pros and cons of both the package manager.

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