If you have ever used Windows in your life then you must be aware of the horrible package management of Windows. Package management is one area in which Linux annihilates Windows by a huge margin. All the software in Windows is scattered and very few of them are actually available in the Microsoft Store. You have to hunt the internet for Software that is not available in the Microsoft Store. This creates a very big problem in Windows.
Why is a package manager necessary for Windows?
Any operating system should have a nice package manager which not only looks nice but has most of the packages that are available for the operating system. Ubuntu has its own software center, Manjaro has 'PAMAC', Kubuntu and KDE Neon have 'Discover' where you can find most, if not all of the software that can be installed on these Linux distributions.
Windows also has a store of its own called Microsoft Store. But it is in no way comparable to the package managers in Linux. With the launch of Windows 11, Microsoft has also revamped the Microsoft Store and made it very easy for developers to add their apps to the Microsoft Store. But it still lacks many apps for which your only option is to hunt the internet.
There is a very huge problem with searching the internet for different software. If you do not know what you are doing, you could easily go to a fake website instead of the official one and download some malware, adware, spyware, or virus instead of the software you were looking for. That is why a package manager for Windows is very important as it would save time while keeping you safe as every software would be available in one place.
What is Chocolatey?
Luckily for Windows users, there is an excellent package manager called Chocolatey already available. It is a trusted package manager for Windows which contains most of the software from Windows. The software can be installed by using simple commands. And if you are worried about security, then don't, because it pulls up the most updated version of the Software that you want to download from the official source.
How to install Chocolatey in Windows 10?
Chocolatey can be installed very easily in Windows 10. Some basic requirements for installing Chocolatey are -
Windows 7+/Windows 2003+ (Server Core also, but not Windows Nano Server)
Windows PowerShell v2+ (not PowerShell Core aka PowerShell 6 yet)
.NET Framework 4.x+
Most of the modern PCs preinstalled with Windows 10 already meet the above requirements.
To install chocolatey, follow the given steps -
Open Windows Powershell as an Administrator (Search for Windows Powershell in Windows Search, right-click the Powershell icon and select 'Run as Administrator).
Run the command Get-ExecutionPolicy in Powershell. If the result comes as 'Restricted', then move to the next step.
Type Set-ExecutionPolicy AllSigned in Powershell and press enter. It will give you a warning. Type either Y for Yes or A for 'Yes to All' and hit enter.
After doing this, type -
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'))
and press enter.
If it asks for permission, give it permission by typing Y for Yes, or A for 'Yes to All' (like you had done previously) and press enter.
After it completes all the work, close Powershell and restart your PC.
How to use chocolatey to install apps?
Now that Chocolatey is installed, it is time to install some apps. We would be installing the messaging app 'Signal' as an example.
To install Signal through Chocolatey, follow the given steps -
Open Windows Powershell as Administrator.
To install any app through chocolatey, type the command choco install <app name> .
For example, to install Signal, type choco install signal and hit enter.
If it asks for permission, then press Y for Yes or A for 'Yes to All' and hit enter.
You will be able to see the things going on in Powershell, including the packages it is installing as well as where it is downloading them from (Chocolatey always downloads the most updated packages from the Official Source).
You can close the Powershell window after it finishes installing the app.
After this is done, the app will be successfully installed on your PC and you can open it just like any other app.
If you want tutorials on more commands for Chocolatey, then please let us know in the comments section or on our social media handles. All links are available in the footnote section.
Links -
Read More -
Comments