The Windows Package Manager (also known as winget) is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

package manager A package manager or package management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals wi ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

for

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...

and

Windows 11 Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...

. It consists of a

command-line utility A console application or command-line program is a computer program (applications or utilities) designed to be used via a text-only user interface. A console application can be used with a computer terminal, a system console, or a terminal emu ...

and a set of services for installing applications.Windows Package Manager Preview , Windows Command Line
/ref>

Independent software vendors An independent software vendor (ISV), also known as a software publisher, is an organization specializing in making and selling software, in contrast to computer hardware, designed for mass marketing, mass or niche market, niche markets. This is i ...

can use it as a distribution channel for their software packages.

History

Windows Package Manager was first announced at the Microsoft Build developer conference in May 2020. Before deciding to develop Windows Package Manager, the team behind it explored Chocolatey,

Scoop Scoop, Scoops or The Scoop may refer to: Artefacts * Scoop (machine part), a component of machinery to carry things * Scoop (tool), a shovel-like tool, particularly one deep and curved, used in digging * Scoop (theater), a type of wide area l ...

, Ninite, AppGet, Npackd and the

PowerShell PowerShell is a shell program developed by Microsoft for task automation and configuration management. As is typical for a shell, it provides a command-line interpreter for interactive use and a script interpreter for automation via a langu ...

-based OneGet. After the announcement of winget, the developer of AppGet, Keivan Beigi, claimed that Microsoft interviewed him in December 2019 under the pretense of employment and acquiring AppGet. After talking with Beigi, Microsoft allegedly ceased communication with him until confirming one day before the launch of winget that they would not be hiring him. Beigi was dismayed at Microsoft's lack of attribution of AppGet. The release of winget led Beigi to announce that AppGet would be discontinued in August 2020. Microsoft responded with a blog post crediting a number of winget's features to AppGet. Microsoft released version 1.0 of Windows Package Manager on May 27, 2021. The Microsoft Community Repository included over 1,400 packages at that date.

Overview

The winget tool supports installers based on

EXE Exe or EXE may refer to: * .exe, a file extension * exe., abbreviation for Executive (disambiguation)#Role, title, or function, executive Places * River Exe, in England * Exe Estuary, in England * Exe Island, in Exeter, England Transportation a ...

, MSIX, and MSI. The public ''Windows Package Manager Community repository'' hosts

manifest file In computer programming, a manifest file is a Data file, file containing metadata for a group of accompanying files that are part of a set or coherent unit. For example, the files of a computer program may have a manifest describing the name, Soft ...

s for supported applications in

YAML YAML ( ) is a human-readable data serialization language. It is commonly used for configuration files and in applications where data is being stored or transmitted. YAML targets many of the same communications applications as Extensible Marku ...

format.GitHub - microsoft/winget-pkgs: The Microsoft community Windows Package Manager manifest repository
/ref> In September 2020, Microsoft added the ability to install applications from the

Microsoft Store The Microsoft Store (formerly known as the Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It was created as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps. With ...

and a command auto-completion feature. To reduce the likelihood of non-Microsoft-approved software, including

malicious software Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

, making its way into the repository and onto the target machine, Windows Package Manager uses

Microsoft SmartScreen SmartScreen (officially called Windows SmartScreen, Windows Defender SmartScreen and SmartScreen Filter in different places) is a cloud-based anti-phishing and anti-malware component included in several Microsoft products: * All versions of the M ...

static analysis Static analysis, static projection, or static scoring is a simplified analysis wherein the effect of an immediate change to a system is calculated without regard to the longer-term response of the system to that change. If the short-term effect i ...

SHA256 SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) is a set of cryptographic hash functions designed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and first published in 2001. They are built using the Merkle–Damgård construction, from a one-way compression ...

hash validation and other processes. The winget client

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

and the community manifest repository are licensed under

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

and hosted on

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

Commands

Examples

Search for and installs variable : winget install --id=$PKG_ID -e List all installed packages: winget list Update all packages: winget upgrade --all

Package ID examples

Visual Studio Code Visual Studio Code, commonly referred to as VS Code, is an integrated development environment developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux, macOS and web browsers. Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code comp ...

, a code editor from Microsoft: *

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...

: "Winget PKG of Google Chrome
https://winget.run/pkg/Google/Chrome
/ref> *

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curren ...

: * Brave: *

Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, impresario of Baroque music and Roman Catholic priest. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lif ...

References

External links

Windows Package Manager , Microsoft Docs
* *
UniGetUI (formerly WingetUI)
- Community-made GUI for Winget {{Microsoft FOSS 2020 software Command-line software Free package management systems Free software programmed in C++ Microsoft free software Software using the MIT license Windows-only free software