I love this utility
Every once in a while I run across something I think is really cool and useful. Here is one of them.
Years ago when I started looking into cloud servers for hosting and I started using Amazon Web Services. I really didn’t have any experience with Ubuntu Linux so I had to learn. I was really impressed with the command line in Linux and all the tools available. I have been using Windows (and DOS before that) forever. Windows never had anything close to the tools built into the Linux command line. I was extremely jealous and feeling and little inadequate.
One of the best utilities was a utility called apt-get. This little marvel allows you to install, remove or update software from the command line just buy knowing the name of the package associated with it. It would also download it from the inter-webs for you. It was a real time saver and thought how great it would be to have something like this for Windows.
Flash forward a few years later and I came across this little wonder of a utility, the Chocolatey Package Manager. This may be one of the best time saving little program I have ever seen. It allows me to install and update most of the applications on my machine with a single command line. This is probably a power user program and not something the casual computer user would need. Being a developer I tend to clean my machine often. Sometimes even because I want to instead of the usual having to. I’m about as bright as a small appliance light bulb.
Typing a simple command line like the one below will download the Chrome browser and install it on your machine.
choco install chrome -y
You aren’t limited to installing a single program. Multiple packages can be included, one after the other and Chocolatey will install them all. I have a simple batch file that includes all the software I normally install on a clean machine. Anytime I have to refresh the operating system on my computer I can just install Chocolatey then run the batch file to install everything set it and forget it style. There are close to 7,000 packages available for your installing pleasure. You can browse the list yourself at Chocolatey Package browser.
Here is a command that will download and install VLC, Filezilla, Steam, NodeJS, Firefox, Chrome, WinMerge, Visual Studio Code, GIT, Docker and 7-Zip. The ‘-y’ parameter tells Chocolatey to automatically accept all license agreement questions. Using it isn’t required but if you don’t the installations may pause between packages to ask you if you accept the license agreement. No one has time for that.
choco install vlc filezilla steam nodejs firefox googlechrome winmerge visualstudiocode git docker-for-windows 7zip -y
Using Chocolatey to install your applications also allows you to easily update them. You can type this command and Chocolatey will check for any updates in all the application you installed using it and update them if available.
choco update all -y
Give this one a try, I think you’ll like it.
You’re Welcome.
~Rob