Windows 11 still stands out to me as one of the worse PR jobs by Microsoft. They focused on the negatives, unsupported systems and the changes to the UI, yet failed to focus on the changes that developers and power users have been waiting for.
To give Microsoft some credit. Their redesign of the Microsoft Store is great. Instead of being a repository of poorly built apps, they chose to put the end user and developer first. In Windows 10 Microsoft made the mistake of trying to monetize their app store before it had power. Keep in mind Apple first built their own ecosystem up before opening their app store to monetization.
The Microsoft App Store now includes many apps from various web sources and GitHub (now a subsidiary of Microsoft). And that shouldn’t really be a side note, as I believe the influence of GitHub has changed the trajectory of Microsoft’s planning for the better. You can now install LibreOffice and many other apps straight from the Microsoft Store.
Silently, a feature entered Windows 11 that was desired for a decade. Projects like Chocolatey have filled this void for power users. Yet, if it weren’t for an article on TechRadar, I would have never known about the feature.
INTRODUCING WINGET
Winget works very much like Chocolatey or Homebrew. The name suggests a goal to be more like Debian’s aptitude package manager (or apt-get), but I have yet to discover an ability through winget to do a complete system update or to update all of my installed software. (If this feature exists, please comment below!)
USING WINGET
- Open Windows Terminal (previously known as the Command Prompt)
- Typing winget without a command is a good way to get the manual page and learn how to use it. (I’ll post the manual link below)
- To search for a program type winget search <appname>
- To install the application type winget install <appname>
- Please note that winget is not very forgiving on the app name, it needs to be exact.
- If you have trouble use the exact option winget install -e <app.name.as.appears.in.search>
Microsoft does have a helpful doc on their support website.
THANK YOU MICROSOFT FOR FINALLY GIVING US A PACKAGE MANAGER!
