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Windows 10 will come with a command-line package manager

• Systemic33 12y ago
  Will be interesting if this will be similar to linux with the possibility of community driven repositories alongside official repo's. Or if it's more of an admintool to do windows updates/windows store installs. Edit: Apparently, it's also open source [1] [1] https://github.com/OneGet/oneget https://github.com/OneGet/oneget
  • A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    It says it uses the same package format at Chocolatey and you can even add their repos. I don't know if there's any caveats to this, but it's a very, very good sign. I am excited about this.
• SwellJoe 12y ago
  As simple as it seems, this single failing has been my primary reason for outright dismissing Windows as a reasonable contender for server usage, no matter what else Microsoft might do to make it attractive for a variety of server tasks. A system that cannot be updated easily without human intervention is not a system that deserves a place in any data center.
  • alyx 12y ago
    I take it you're not familiar with Windows Server...
    • asdfaoeu 12y ago
      Considering a lot of the audience is Linux admins here what are you referring to?
      • agildehaus 12y ago
        WSUS maybe?
        • paulfurtado 12y ago
          That, and possibly installing programs via group policy and MSI packages
        • sixothree 12y ago
          Windows Management Framework, Desired State Configuration, DISM, etc?
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    • SwellJoe 12y ago
      It's been nearly a decade since I managed any Windows servers. I'm more than willing to believe there are features of modern Windows systems that I don't know about. Perhaps you can fill me in on what I've been missing...I assume you're implying there is some equivalent to yum or apt-get on Windows that allows easily updating system and third-party packages from the command line without human intervention? And, do most vendors make their software available through this mechanism? That would be a miraculous improvement over the couple dozen different update services that run on a Windows box (Java updater, Adobe updater, Apple updater, Oracle updater for VirtualBox, etc.), all of which have wildly variable reliability and are mostly impossible to script or automate. If those are gone from the Windows management experience, that'd be great.
      • wfjackson 12y ago
        I've thankfully never seen a Windows Server with Flash, Reader, iTunes or VirtualBox installed, sounds like a security nightmare waiting to happen regardless updates. I also see lots of insecure and outdated applications running on Linux servers, especially Wordpress, Drupal, myphpadmin, cPanel etc. Heartbleed and Shellshock themselves are still not patched in a good percentage of servers.
        • SwellJoe 12y ago
          I was merely providing examples everyone is familiar with. What software do you run on your Windows servers? And, how does it get updated?
          • gfodor 12y ago
            I run a few windows servers maintained via ansible. There is a protocol called winrm built that is functionally equivalent to ssh for the purposes of remotely controlling a box. Ansible uses winrm to provision. Beyond that, chocolatey.org provides a complete package management solution as long as you are looking to install popular free (as in beer) software. Also, you need to learn powershell to do anything useful. It's painful but I have to sit back in awe at the extent of the APIs available to you from the powershell prompt, each one hand crafted by a Microsoft employee. Pretty much anything you need to from a OS configuration perspective can be done in powershell pretty easily. Once you get over these couple of things it's not terrible. (though I of course widely prefer linux)
  • sandGorgon 12y ago
    search for Microsoft SMS and SCCM - this is actually like a package manager + Puppet/Chef rolled into one. Very expensive though and not good usability - but is far more sophisticated (with P2P downloading, tree structure repositories, etc.)
  • orbifold 12y ago
    Well I take it you have never maintained a 10k+ installation of Windows machines then? How do you imagine this is done? An army of sysadmins going from PC to PC and manually clicking through installation dialogues?
• melling 12y ago
  I'm not a Windows user so maybe I'm way off, but wouldn't adding Cortana go much farther in getting people to upgrade? How's the Kinect support in Windows? Quite honestly, Microsoft is only competing against itself. How many XP uses are still out there? A couple hundred couple hundred million? Give them a reason to get excited.
  • gum_ina_package 12y ago
    It seems like you haven't paid much attention to the leaks and rumors out there... Cortana is 100% going to be in Windows 10 from the looks of it. Also, this package manager is designed to get the people MS needs excited the most - hardcore power users like us.
    • melling 12y ago
      That's what I said. I'm not a Windows users. I follow a little Windows phone and some Surface 3 news.
  • UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    This isn't aimed at consumers. This is aimed squarely at businesses. Cortana won't excite them as much as further automation which decreases workload and by extension costs.
  • wfjackson 12y ago
    http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6876177/windows-10-cortana-feature http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6876177/windows-10-cortana...
  • amaks 12y ago
    Regarding Kinect support in Windows -- is it IKinect, or Kinect.NET?
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• gum_ina_package 12y ago
  This could be awesome, especially if it can integrate with the Windows Store. Maybe even your XBox/WP too?
• mherkender 12y ago
  This reminds me of that time that Microsoft caught up to a competitor years too late to have any impact.
  • UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    If Windows Server or Exchange weren't a massive continued success you might have a point. As it is you just sound pathetic. http://www.tannerhelland.com/4993/microsoft-money-updated-2013/ http://www.tannerhelland.com/4993/microsoft-money-updated-20...
    • 72deluxe 12y ago
      We were looking to replace our ancient Exchange server with an Open-Source equivalent but nothing has a feature-parity. Nothing has the widespread support as Exchange: ability to fetch on all mobiles, widespread desktop protocol support (not just IMAP but you know, that Exchangey binary protocol), a web interface etc. etc. etc. It just is a massive continued success, although from my migration from 2003 to 2010 and subsequent pain to 2010 SP2, I didn't find it successful or painless - I don't miss maintaining it. I think a lot of folks on here look at the world through very narrow glasses where they write Python web-apps under Linux, or work in SOHO environments that rely on external email providers; they don't come across the all-pervasive Windows desktop culture. They never need to touch Active Directory, let alone understand what it is or why they'd need it, and never have to touch an Exchange server or roll-out applications across an array of desktop machines. It is a pity because some end up making short-sighted narrow-FOV comments about Microsoft and Windows etc. that are unnecessary. Just because we don't use a system, we shouldn't assume that nobody else does.
      • JetSpiegel 12y ago
        You tell me that only Exchange can work with their own binary protocol? I'm shocked! Evolution can understand it, as I recall, and Red Hat has a server side component too, I don't recall the name now.
        • 12y ago
• kolev 12y ago
  One-up OS X!
• TheSoftwareGuy 12y ago
  Awesome. Maybe I'll end up buying a windows machine sometime soon.
• jqm 12y ago
  Someone at work told me Windows 10 is also going to have virtual desktops. Haven't verified. I did play with a release preview of 10. It was actually OK in a brief 5 minute survey. I won't ever use it for day to day stuff, (I'm a Linux user), but its nice to see them at least appearing to make an effort. I think most of us in the field are at some level negatively impacted when Microsoft engages in evil/stupid behavior, so it's nice when they come out with something good which they do from time to time.
  • fetbaffe 12y ago
    How to Use Virtual Desktops in Windows 10 http://www.howtogeek.com/197625/how-to-use-virtual-desktops-in-windows-10/ http://www.howtogeek.com/197625/how-to-use-virtual-desktops-...
• robomartin 12y ago
  If Windows 10 was built on top of Linux I'd get a lot more excited. I have to use Windows for the myriad of engineering tools that are not available under any other OS, for example, SolidWorks, Altium Designer, various embedded toolsets, etc. And, while I've been using PC's (and Macs and Linux) since they came on the scene I hate, hate, hate the DOS or technically DOS-like underbelly of the beast. I know it is a ridiculous idea. It would break everything, including their profitable corporate platforms. Yes, there are ways to mitigate this but it'd be nice if all computing platforms got behind a common standard. Utopia. I know.
  • yzzxy 12y ago
    What about just real POSIX and some kind of X interop or compatibility baked in? My (poorly informed) guess is this would allow a lot of low-hanging fruit from Linux, BSD, etc to be ported properly.
    • alttab 12y ago
      Inevitably that effort would still fall short, and therefore not really at all. The leverage of linux is the linux community, and the access. Not ls vs dir. IMO. In any case, if they provided the Windows 8 experience built right on top of linux (and all the binaries and everything still worked) it would be a marvel.
    • cwyers 12y ago
      Windows used to have those things. Windows 8 was where they removed it. I believe the official answer nowadays is "run a Unix using Hyper-V."
      • dragonwriter 12y ago
        Well, no, they didn't remove it; its been a separate component for a long time, and with Windows 8 they restricted it to Windows 8 Enterprise and Server 2012. (Though I think the Windows 7 version can actually be used in Windows 8.)
• lsiebert 12y ago
  So does it do dependency management? That to me is essential in a real package management tool.
  • Eyas 12y ago
    The release notes here (https://github.com/OneGet/oneget/blob/master/release-notes.md https://github.com/OneGet/oneget/blob/master/release-notes.m...) show a few mentions of defining and getting dependencies. I'm going to guess the answer is 'yes'.
    • stingraycharles 12y ago
      Dependency management is more than 'defining and getting dependencies'. What if package X relies on version 1 of package A, and and package Y relies on version 2 of package A. Will they work together, each in an isolated sandbox, or will you have dependency conflicts? Package management is a really difficult problem to solve, which linux package managers have barely been able to solve. In addition to this, each programming language usually has its own package manager again, which vary a lot in quality.
      • Scaevolus 12y ago
        Windows has had a solution for conflicting library dependencies since Windows 98: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-by-side_assembly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-by-side_assembly
        • AnthonyMouse 12y ago
          Not all dependencies are libraries, e.g. a module requires the [version of] the program it is a module for.
      • useerup 12y ago
        Linux repositories conflates package management and (library/ABI) dependency management. Windows already has locally deployed assemblies and central side-by-side (SxS) assemblies that can accommodate multiple versions of the same assembly, complete with major/minor versioning, redirection etc. Windows Installer supports reference counting and automatic uninstalling for the centrally deployed assemblies. This new OneGet package manager is for solving the availability and automatic updating of packages. But Windows is not going to need separate repositories for each incremental update of Windows and the ABI.
• xyzzy_plugh 12y ago
  There has been an (albeit poor) package manager for some time: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/cc748979(v=ws.10).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/cc748979(v=ws.10)... I've personally struggled with it to fix corrupt updated installed by windows updates, and while it doesn't meet the bar set by mainstream Linux distro package managers, it is a package manager nonetheless.
  • agumonkey 12y ago
    Amazing how Microsoft keep stuff in obscurity.
    • w-ll 12y ago
      Blame marketing.
  • xpaulbettsx 12y ago
    Not quite the same - while internally it is basically how you describe, pkgmgr.exe (or more properly CBS/CSI, http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2008/04/23/understanding-component-based-servicing.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2008/04/23/unders...), is solely for servicing Windows itself. Users can't create packages.
• joenathan 12y ago
  This will be a great way to automate Java and Flash updates, so users don't have play uncheck the adware every time there's an update.
  • cordite 12y ago
    Just hope that oracle doesn't try to sneak install the ask toolbar with every update.
    • aragot 12y ago
      Is there a reason why we have fewer of those problems with Mac OS X? I can see that the Windows audience often isn't tech-savvy enough to understand that Ask isn't part of Windows, and that's probably also because Chrome/Firefox/Safari are more diligent about managing extensions than IE. But there's a very serious constant problem of spyware/adware in Windows that I don't feel exists in Mac OS X and Linux.
      • guardian5x 12y ago
        Well you named it. Marketshare is still over 90% on the desktop and most non-tech-savvy users are likely to use Windows as well. I can't think of any other reason.
      • roel_v 12y ago
        Because the markets are too small. Windows is what, 90%+ market share? Why spend n2 or n3 times the effort (as a malware writer) when the absolute highest upshot is a single-digit percentage ?
      • Alphasite_ 12y ago
        There's not just that, we just don't use installers in 99% of apps either, which makes installing toolbars tricky.
  • andrewstuart2 12y ago
    install-package java --defaults > Installing: > Java > Ask.com toolbar > Ask.com rootkit
• kyllo 12y ago
  Cool, but will you still have to restart your computer every time you install something?
  • olegbl 12y ago
    Huh, I haven't done that since Vista.
    • msie 12y ago
      I have a really hard time believing that.
      • bruce511 12y ago
        For the purposes of this reply, I'm talking about packages as distinct from Windows itself. A reboot is required if something you are trying to install is already in uss. Windows locks executable files and dells while they are being used, so it's not possible for an installer to overwrite them. When an installer detects this it places the new file in a temp store, and windows empties this store on startup, Thus if you are updating say Java, and the Java binaries are in use, then a reboot will be required. On the other hand if the binaries are not in use, then they won't. So the need to reboot will vary enormously from one user to the next, based n their habits (do you close the program before updating it?) and also the kinds of programs they have running when they do an update. Aside: some installers can detect that the program is running and terminate it as part of the upgrade process, thus explicitly avoiding a reboot. That's why say Firefox and Chrome never need a reboot. But that's easier to do with a program, and less easy with a runtime like say Java.
        • useerup 12y ago
          See also the Restart Manager (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa373524(v=vs.85).aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa37...) Restart Manager along with Windows Installer will manage stopping and restarting running applications/services to make sure that executables, DLLs, configuration files etc are updated atomically and transactionally.
• sundvor 12y ago
  Wow, what's next, ability to shift-ctrl+c & shift-ctrl+v text in the console just by default?
  • fungi 12y ago
    2015. The year of the Windows command line :)
  • useerup 12y ago
    Indeed: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/command-prompt-improvements-in-windows-10-technical-preview/ http://www.techrepublic.com/article/command-prompt-improveme...
    • sundvor 12y ago
      Thanks, that actually looks really good. No-fuss copy and paste, auto resizing windows, transparency, etc. All they needed to do was clone how terminals such as Ubuntu's does it ... and it looks like that's what they did. :) I've been waiting for this for quite some time.
  • junto 12y ago
    You mean that right click on the window chrome then select 'mark' then select text then right click window again and then choose 'copy' isn't a good user interface?
    • dooptroop 12y ago
      Now tell me the shortcut for scrolling without a mouse. Quickly.
      • ygra 12y ago
        Alt+Space, E, L.
    • to3m 12y ago
      No, it's crap, so the only people that do that are beginners, command line tourists, or people using one of the very small number of console programs that support the mouse. Regular console users use the QuickEdit mode: left click to enter select mode, drag box - or double click to select a space-or-line-end-delimited region. Then press return to copy or esc to cancel. Then right click to paste. Squint hard enough, and it's almost like using xterm! (Bonus feature: you can halt unexpected TTY spew by clicking in the window, giving you a chance to examine it.) QuickEdit still doesn't fix the box select thing (at least not pre-Windows 10) but it's a massive improvement nonetheless.
• zbowling 12y ago
  The article says that it's the same format as Chocolatey (an existing Windows package management tool) but actually it's a fork of NuGet in Windows 10 and Chocolatey is also a compatible fork of NuGet. Microsoft already owns and maintains NuGet.
  • viggity 12y ago
    Not trying to be pedantic, but Microsoft doesn't own/maintain NuGet. OuterCurve does and while MS supports OuterCurve with cash/time, it is its own entity and MS does a good job keeping them separate.
• arjie 12y ago
  Fantastic. It'd be great if it would integrate with the Store. I'm guessing that even if it supports dependency resolution, most packages will just be monolithic blobs like currently. That does have its advantages, so it'll be interesting to see if people switch to specifying dependencies instead of bundling them.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• Yuioup 12y ago
  Sorry, penguin lovers — if you thought that 2015, in the heinous wake of Windows 8, would finally be the year of desktop Linux, you were sadly mistaken. If you’ve ever ventured into the dark and mysterious land of Linutopia, where Ubutologists and Debianites reign, ... Wow what a snarky article! I guess Extremetech does not like Linux at all...
  • Ronsenshi 12y ago
    To be honest, it was kinda funny. I don't see why we can't find it humorous that year after year someone says that the next year will be a year of Linux. I love Linux - been using it for several years and wouldn't trade it for anything (be it OS X or Win with package manager). Package manager is certainly an awesome thing, but not something that would make me (and probably anyone else using Linux) to switch over.
    • girvo 12y ago
      > ...someone says that the next year will be a year of Linux. Who says that unironically in 2014, though?
      • Joeri 12y ago
        Given that more android devices are sold than windows, iOS and OS X combined, I would say it is a mere observation of fact that the past few years every year has been the year of linux. Linux on the desktop on the other hand...
        • progman 12y ago
          Android actually _is_ a Linux desktop system. It is a GUI on top of a Java based virtual machine on top of a Linux kernel. This Linux desktop has actually overthrown both Windows and iOS. The market share was 85% in Q2 2014 according to: http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/07/31/android-reached-record-85-smartphone-market-share-q2-2014-report/ http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/07/31/android-reached-reco... Android just uses another type of input than classical keyboards and mice. But you can also use keyboards and mice here. There are x86 implementations of Android, and you can root into the Linux system, and you can use Linux features within your Android device. Terminals for instance: http://news.dice.com/2014/03/31/run-linux-terminal-android/ http://news.dice.com/2014/03/31/run-linux-terminal-android/ Of course, Windows 10 advocates don't want to let people know these facts :-)
• mastazi 12y ago
  The fact that the Chocolatey repository will be compatible is very convenient, it looks like MS is listening to the user community, well done.
  • ninjaoxygen 12y ago
    Hmm, I'm not so sure I appreciate the Chocolately support. I've found the packages really spotty as to where they are going to install, what options they are going to use, whether they bother to provide an uninstaller. I think a large part of that is how Windows manages installation and libraries though. In an ideal world maybe everything would provide MSIs, but they alone are not a silver bullet. I hope Microsoft take the Updates side seriously - having many separate auto-updaters on the system all taking different views on when they should run is a nightmare. If they created an integrated third-party application update system I would love them for it.
    • jinushaun 12y ago
      But those are installer problems, not Chocolatey problems. Anyone who starts on the road to automated installations on Windows realises that it's basically the Wild West. Especially if you need to install XP or Vista era software.
• logn 12y ago
  > and who knows, that might just trigger some kind of revolution in Windows app management Free trials of un-tar? Installing apps that require subscriptions to the cloud? Dev libraries that require enterprise support packages? Good package management on Linux is owed largely to the tireless voices such as Stallman who understand the core issues here. Yes, tying together install scripts and maintaining repositories requires a lot of work, and good for Microsoft. But the reason It Just Works is because the software is free, from top to bottom, including the OS. And Mac will have the same problem here as Windows. For now, I'm guessing this is just a command-line interface to app stores.
  • spain 12y ago
    Pretty much. While it's cool coming from Microsoft I'm willing to bet it's going to be an inferior implementation one way or another compared to Linux distributions.
    • nailer 12y ago
      Why? Powershell innovated a lot over bash - try and kill all processes started in the last hour with bash, then do the same with posh (hint: a regex is a terrible, terrible way to deal with time). MS could do something good with package management.
      • Touche 12y ago
        Try writing a Powershell cmdlet in a language not designed by Microsoft.
        • nailer 12y ago
          Any language that has a .net VM implementation can do it, including Python and Ruby, which weren't designed by Microsoft.
          • Touche 12y ago
            IronRuby is a dead project and IronPython was heavily written by Microsoft.
• awor 12y ago
  the lead dev and architect for OneGet jumped on the reddit thread yesterday and answered a bunch of questions: http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2khkpo/windows_10_to_have_a_package_manager/ http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2khkpo/windows_10_... using the username : fearthecowboy (his twitter is the same, @fearthecowboy ) This was the top comment: http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2khkpo/windows_10_to_have_a_package_manager/clleyir http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2khkpo/windows_10_...
  • berdario 12y ago
    Nice... For those who've never heard of him: he's also the main developer behind Coapp http://coapp.org/ http://coapp.org/
    • ethomson 12y ago
      Do you have a positive experience with CoApp? Mine has been overwhelmingly negative: it does not appear to work, does not appear to be maintained and does not appear to be supported. I've been trying to get somebody to provide even a little bit of support for Native Nuget packages via CoApp for months: http://stackoverflow.com/q/24331880/729881 http://stackoverflow.com/q/24331880/729881
      • berdario 12y ago
        I'm afraid to say that I haven't had a positive experience either, but I was just interested in CoApp out of curiosity: I tried to see if it was doable to use it to package pure Python (or other interpreters) libraries. Obviously it was not ready yet, but I wasn't really let down: I seldom use Windows, so I don't have any real need for it, and my perception was that with some more months/years it would get there. But CoApp and OneGet are worthwhile endeavors, so I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll eventually build something that can make software installation on Windows less painful PS: uh, I just realized that you're a Microsoft developer as well (just like Garret Serack)... is it so difficult to get hold of him even inside the same company? (I don't know... maybe you're actually on different sides of the ocean, and this would make the matter quite a bit more complicated)
• emsy 12y ago
  I believe the biggest problem for its success is that most companies don't want to give up the control a dedicated installer gives them (e.g. installing AskBar that comes with Java, as some comments pointed out). In Linux, dedicated installers are the exception not the rule. I'm curious how the adoption on Windows will be, especially for commercial/non-free software which there is a lot on Windows. I'm also curious how they will present the packages to the average user. Worst case, the user will have to look in three different places to uninstall software (namely System Control, the package manager, and in directories of software that isn't registered anywhere).
• bnt 12y ago
  But why "Install-Package", "Add-Package" and "Update-Package" - it's not like you can install, add or update anything else with this tool.
  • firepacket 12y ago
    They are using the same syntax as NuGet- the Visual Studio package manager console.
  • alkonaut 12y ago
    Descriptive names are good (to some limit). You can maybe add something else (a remote repo? Something else), or maybe it isn't unthinkable that Add-X will eventually be a feature. You can always make an alias "inst" so it's better to keep the underlying command long and descriptive. Also: these should be edited with autocomplete.
  • useerup 12y ago
    Those are PowerShell cmdlets - and follow PowerShell verb-noun naming convention. There is a finite set of "approved" verbs (though you can use your own) representing the "actions" you can perform against a resource (the noun part). From within a PowerShell console I can "add" a lot of things. Try typing gcm -verb add from a PowerShell console (gcm is alias for Get-Command and the command above will list all commands where "Add" is the verb).
  • josteink 12y ago
    I take it you don't have much experience with powershell, which is fair enough. Most people don't. Long story short: These are "Commandlets", commands provided to your PowerShell-session through extension-modules. The PowerShell convention for command-names are Verb-Noun, like for instance Get-DiskImage or whatever, so it makes sense that OneGet builds on these.
• Animats 12y ago
  There will probably be a GUI for it, called an "App store". Windows Vista had a command-line package manager, although it was rather lame. It was a kludge to feed canned answers to installer prompts. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748979%28v=ws.10%29.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748979%28v=ws.1...
  • ferrari8608 12y ago
    Windows has an app store already. I don't know if it works with the command-line tool, but if not, I'm sure they will be tied together eventually. Ubuntu has an app store as well.
• johnchristopher 12y ago
  > While Windows and Mac users have to run graphical installers — you know, where you hit Next a few times and try to avoid installing bundled crapware — Linux users can just open up a command line and type sudo apt-get install vlc. Right. As if VLC on windows comes with crapware. As if apt-get [0] never asked cryptic messages [1]. [0] or yaourt or any other package manager [1] and it's more about the package than the package manager
  • dnet 12y ago
    > As if VLC on windows comes with crapware. At least it did, in a way http://www.howtogeek.com/194993/the-windows-store-is-a-cesspool-of-scams-why-doesnt-microsoft-care/ http://www.howtogeek.com/194993/the-windows-store-is-a-cessp...
    • johnchristopher 12y ago
      > The Store Even Pollutes System Search > rse yet, the Windows Store is now integrated with the system search feature. Search for an application using the Start screen search or search charm and these garbage apps from the Windows Store will appear. For example, whenever I use the system search feature to launch Firefox, I see a link to install “Firefox Training Lite” from the Windows Store. This is insane. But it's hardly VLC's fault. You could say Windows is distributing malwares.
  • kevingadd 12y ago
    Technically, MSI has supported GUI-less command line installation from the beginning, with relatively good dependency management and error reporting. I've invoked MSIexec from install/provisioning scripts fairly often as part of continuous integration toolchains and it works great. Some of my applications also know how to pull down dependencies (like the windows SDK, or the MS CLR) off microsoft's servers via HTTPS and then invoke the installer automatically so features that depend on them can Just Work. If the package manager knows how to leverage this (no doubt it will), that will allow GUI-less installation of a huge percentage of windows apps (MSI is relatively popular now despite its quirks.)
  • 12y ago
• pmontra 12y ago
  Welcome Windows10! What next, maybe a network oriented display manager to be able to open a window on another pc, phone, tablet, xbox? ;-)
• tn13 12y ago
  I am not sure why even in 2014 we have to pit Linux against Windows. We have surely grown out of that sort of debate. Microsoft successfully achieved its objective of putting a computer in every home with the help of Windows. We should thank them for that. Linux on other hand has grown leaps and bounds. Android after all is a linux kernel fork. I think as technology lovers we can surely love both and look at them as technologies complimenting each other rather than competing.
  • inclemnet 12y ago
    > I am not sure why even in 2014 we have to pit Linux against Windows. We have surely grown out of that sort of debate. I think it's unfair to frame any linux/windows debate as fundamentally childish. There are big differences between them, both philosophical and practical, in ways that have real impacts on the users.
    • tn13 12y ago
      I never said there are no differences but those differences are more like between a Business Suite and Bikini rather than Republican Party v/s Democratic Party. Two different OSs which have a different view of the world and catering to different needs in different ways rather than something where their success is a zero sum game between them.
  • SamReidHughes 12y ago
    If you want to decide what OS to use, you need criteria by which to make that decision.
    • Havvy 12y ago
      Sure, but there's no reason for a Windows enhancement to be framed as a Linux vs. Windows thing, except as antagonistic clickbait. As somebody who uses both Windows and Linux, I'm not sad that Windows is becoming more usable. I'm happy - it's one less thing to complain about using Windows.
• alkonaut 12y ago
  Having a package manager is one thing, having a good curated repo of packages is another. I doubt MS Will have the balls to say that all their "partners" (most of the AV vendors, Oracle, ...) whose entire business model is based on crapware or bait & switch will somehow be banned from the repo? Currently it seems that both the apt and choclatey versions of Java actually come without crapware. I have a feeling that if this kind of install becomes the default then the crapware will be bundled there too.
  • nailer 12y ago
    I'm not really sure that relationship with AV vendors is as strong these days for MS to harm Windows UX.
    • pjc50 12y ago
      Microsoft Security Essentials is actively trying to put them out of business. I had the impression that it was the OEMs who liked bundling terrible software. I was looking at tablet PCs and they have some marketing term for "verified by Microsoft not to contain preinstalled crapware". Android doesn't have that.
      • throwawayaway 12y ago
        it's been nerfed so that it doesn't.
      • vomitcuddle 12y ago
        >Android doesn't have that Android has Nexus and Google Play Edition phones.
        • shawabawa3 12y ago
          The Nexus comes with some HP printer crapware that can't be removed without rooting (My Nexus 5 did at least)
          • 12y ago
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• lucb1e 12y ago
  Good step, now the rest of Windows... I mean, Program Files containing the binaries is not even in %PATH%. I assume improvements will be made here too, but I wonder.
  • pjc50 12y ago
    One problem with putting every subdirectory of Program Files in the path is that most of them contain 'setup.exe' and 'uninstall.exe'. Type "uninstall" at the command line to uninstall a random program!
    • lucb1e 12y ago
      Or we could use a real binaries path (e.g. %programfiles%/bin) and symlink (NTFS supports symlinks I think) the binaries from there. Then include that in the %path%. There are many ways to do this but until Windows and its developers decide on one, it'll remain a big mess.
• dpina 12y ago
  Plus, it seems like puppet is working on a plugin to make use of OneGet. It'll make work much more interesting in the future that I'm actually looking forwarding this happening. Couldn't find much more on puppet on this topic than this presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/ferventcoder http://www.slideshare.net/ferventcoder
• lucian1900 12y ago
  > much to the lament of Linux users What? Everyone will be happy to have one, especially people that use Linux at least some of the time.
  • krylon 12y ago
    I agree. I use OSX and Linux at home, but I am a Windows admin at work. And while I strongly prefer Unix-like systems to Windows, I welcome every effort to improve it and make my job easier.
• jimmcslim 12y ago
  Chocolatey is great... although I wish it had a different "more professional"-sounding name. When I was using it in anger a while ago I also found the quality of some of the packages to be a bit random, many of them just seemed to be random developer X's favourite aggregation of other packages. In which case I'm happy to see that they are adopting package moderation; http://geekswithblogs.net/robz/archive/2014/10/27/chocolatey-now-has-package-moderation.aspx http://geekswithblogs.net/robz/archive/2014/10/27/chocolatey...
• ForFreedom 12y ago
  Any idea when its available for download for consumers?
  • gerbal 12y ago
    Today. http://oneget.org/oneget.zip http://oneget.org/oneget.zip
• chippy 12y ago
  But will it have sudo, or would you run PowerShell as Administrator?
  • UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    Windows has runas and has since Windows NT 4.0. Maybe you should educate yourself instead of making incorrect snarky comments?
    • talles 12y ago
      Jeez, take it easy. It's a legit question, few people are aware of runas.
      • chippy 12y ago
        Yep, I'm not aware of it.
    • chippy 12y ago
      wow.
• annnnd 12y ago
  I think the article misses the point. It doesn't matter if the package manager is CLI or GUI-based, what matters is good UI and quality (+ price) of application packages. Mobile stores (Google Play, Apple Store) are a good example of this... they host many apps & are easy to use. Who cares if you use keyboard, mouse or touch to get them.
• rejschaap 12y ago
  I think there is a huge missed opportunity here. I mean, it's good that Microsoft is finally adding functionality that went mainstream in the late 90's. But why don't just skip the flawed approach most of the current Linux distributions use? In my opinion they should have been looking at a more declaritive approach, such as the Nix package manager uses. I will agree though that this oversight is not as bad as TFSVC. Where they were building a centralized version control system when the whole world was switching to decentralized VCSs.
  • windowsworkstoo 12y ago
    It's not the NixOS approach and it needs some work to make it more palatable, but they already ship DSC with PoSH/WMF 4, which goes some of the way.
• analog31 12y ago
  I love it. Bring on "sudo apt-get install." Somehow, folks have been led to think that the command line is a scary place, just for geeks, but it's so easy to lead someone through a slightly complex manual installation by just giving them a few commands to copy and paste into the terminal. And as a somewhat casual user myself, I even find it easier to follow a command line installation than to wade through several pages of "open this window, click on this, click on that," especially when the instructions and the actual installer don't exactly agree due to revision divergence.
• talles 12y ago
  Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAMEVMO4IRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAMEVMO4IRY
• jeffmess 12y ago
  Welcome to the party!
• meapix 12y ago
  linux is not package manager
• GuiA 12y ago
  > Find-Package > Install-Package Dashes and uppercase...what terrible names. Is the windows shell case sensitive (I seem to recall it is but it may have changed)? We've been designing command line interfaces for over half a century now, this is just lazy. Shells are not magically exempt from UI best practices just because they're not graphical.
  • geographomics 12y ago
    It's not case sensitive in terms of execution, this is just how they are stylized: "Verb-Noun" is the standard format for PowerShell commands (or "cmdlets", to use their terminology).
  • be5invis 12y ago
    Have you ever used Powershell? All Powershell cmdlets are named in that way, and you also can create aliases.
  • jmcqk6 12y ago
    You can also easily setup aliases, and there are many unixy aliases built in. For example 'ls', 'cat', other will work. I don't even know the commandlets they're aliasing.
• davidgerard 12y ago
  So is this basically taking Ninite's business model?
• snake_plissken 12y ago
  In terms of managing programs/packages, what is wrong with Add-Remove Programs/Programs and Features? I've always found these to be satisfactory. Or am missing the point here? In terms of automatically retrieving the correct dependencies, I can see this being pretty useful, even if most programs already automatically install the dependencies or at least let you know that you don't have them. Maybe I'll find myself in .Net framework or MS C++ distribution hell a little bit less. The same problem, with missing or incorrect shared libraries, seems to happen just as much when I am on a Free/Net/OpenBSD system. And the workflow for installing a Windows program is fundamentally different from the *Nix eco-system; as the former is mostly closed while the latter open, you have to be much more discrete when installing on Windows. Maybe I am using Windows differently than a lot of other people even if I consider myself a "power" user. I've always felt much of Windows' power and usability came from it's GUI focused experience (forgetting the maddening changes that can occur between versions). Post: after writing all that, I looked at Programs and Features (on windows 7 now) and I think the biggest advantage of something like this would be mapping out dependencies, even if I don't think I've ever deleted one by mistake. Still, it would be nice.
  • 432uihf23 12y ago
    Installing and updating Windows programs is painfully slow and complicated compared to Linux. Instead of searching for a program and clicking "Install", you have to find and navigate to the website, download the installer, execute it, grant permissions to run, uncheck adware boxes, choose install options and click exit. For every single program. Many programs still make you do the same for every update and that's one of the reasons most users don't keep their software up-to-date. Installing and managing software is easily my biggest gripe with Windows right now.
• aespinoza 12y ago
  I hope they change the options. I think this is way too long for a command: * Install-Package -Name firefox When in Linux I can just do this: * apt-get install firefox I would love to see this: Package -install firefox
  • happy_ginger 12y ago
    That is pretty much an impossibility as it's a Powershell cmdlet which follows a verb-noun rule for naming things.
    • Karunamon 12y ago
      This requirement has kept me away from taking powershell seriously. English is a horrible language for telling computers what to do.
  • benjin 12y ago
    I've always thought verb-noun made more sense (since functionality in powershell isn't bundled/accessed as a complete program it has that flexibility). * Install-Package firefox would be hugely preferable, though. Smart defaults are good things!
• Fuzzwah 12y ago
  I'm coming to this massive comment party late, but I wanted to drop my thoughts about this and explain why I'm personally very excited by OneGet. I'm a very experienced Windows Server Admin (15 years). I'm also a fairly experienced Linux Server Admin (7 years, on and off). I'm currently an SCCM guru for a ~4000 user organisation. I'm sure that if OneGet is supported by MS to the level which the developer explained in the reddit thread it'll be a boon to power users managing their own systems and to desktop support people. But I can imagine that it'll be the SCCM teams who can leverage the most out of it. The thought of being able to deploy and manage software across desktops and servers in a similar way to apt or yum makes me feel something close to utter joy. I've had to build some very complex task sequences to install software on corporate machines. The worst example I can give is MS's own Dynamics CRM application. I was seriously proud of the batch files, registry inserts, dll hell avoidance, dependency solving, mother of all automated install processes to get Dynamics installed and hooked into Outlook in a magical way that the end user had no clue the complexity of. It was only after slugging through developing all of the above that I found the incredible PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit [1], which people smarter than me had developed to basically handle everything I'd just slogged through. From what I see OneGet has the potential of allowing us to easily push installs and updates via SCCM with out having to rely on 3rd party tools, batch files, msi rebuilding and general hackery. Even if it doesn't gain wide support from software vendors, just enabling me to rip everything out of an msi and repackage it into a private OneGet repo sounds superior to having to rely on complex SCCM task sequences. I'll be watching this closely. [1] https://psappdeploytoolkit.codeplex.com/ https://psappdeploytoolkit.codeplex.com/
• whoisthemachine 12y ago
  It seems to me if Microsoft is copying features from Linux for Windows, then it may be that Linux on the desktop is starting to worry them.
  • krylon 12y ago
    As much as I wish it were so, I do not think that is the case at all. What worries them, if anything, is more people using Macs, and more people ditching their PC/laptop in favor of shiny smartphones and tablets.
• slavik81 12y ago
  I liked how the idea's champion dealt with Microsoft bureaucracy: > So, back in August I started looking at what I was going to accomplish over the next year or so, and I thought it would be a good idea to try and see if I could get some of the CoApp package management ideas put into Windows itself (hey, it'd be kinda nice to be able to do apt-get style-stuff and have that built into the OS) > I had proposed some of this at the beginning of the product cycle for Windows Blue (Server 2012 R2/Windows 8.1) but it was a little too late in the planning cycle, and I gave too-grand of a vision. > I finally came to full understanding of some advice my pappy once told me: "The secret to success is to find someone else to care what you care about, and make it their problem." ... I looked at him like I understood what he meant, but he could tell that I was just paying lip service. He then said "Try it this way: Set the building on fire, take someone else's stuff into the building with you, and then cry for help" http://coapp.org/news/2013-10-02-State-of-CoApp.html http://coapp.org/news/2013-10-02-State-of-CoApp.html