Windows Has a Hidden Package Manager
Installing multiple applications at once on Windows can be annoying. You need to find the installation packages, download them, and then run them all one by one. It takes a lot of time clicking menus and checking boxes. But you don’t have to live like that.
Linux users have long used package managers to do this with much greater ease, as have some Mac users . Using a package manager, you can enter one command to install as many different applications as you like. And it turns out that Windows has a package manager. It’s called Winget.
You can try this right now – just open PowerShell, which you can find in the Start menu, or by right-clicking the Windows logo and selecting Terminal. Type winget search and then the application you want to install. In most cases, you should be given a list of options.
In the example above, I wanted to install Steam, so I ran the winget search steam command. I got a long list of results, mainly because there are a ton of apps that include the word “steam”. The second column, labeled ID, tells me the exact name I need to install the appropriate package. Once I find the app I want, I can install it using the command. In this case, I type winget install Valve.Steam and press Enter, and Winget will take everything from there.
After I type this command, Winget will download Steam and automatically launch the installer for me. Please note that if you are not using PowerShell with administrative rights, you will be prompted to grant installation permissions. You can run PowerShell as an administrator by right-clicking the Windows logo on the taskbar and selecting Terminal (Administrator). Alternatively you can use sudo for Windows .
That caveat aside, you can use these commands to install any of the nearly 8,000 apps. And it gets even better because you’re not limited to installing one app at a time—your team can include as many apps as you want, and winget will install them all.
Bulk installation of multiple programs using hep from winstall.app.
You can find the ID of each application you want to install as described above, but there is a website that makes this process much easier – winstall.app . It’s essentially a directory for Winget that allows you to select as many apps as you want and copy one command that you can use to install them all at once.
Winget can also run updates, uninstall programs, and more.
Winget can do more than just install apps. You can also use it to update all the software you have installed with it. First, type winget update to see a list of all applications that require updates. Then enter winget update --all to install all the listed updates.
You can also remove apps using Winget: type winget remove followed by the package name of the app you want to remove—for example, winget remove Valve.Steam .
Winget can do a few more things, including downloading installers without running them ( winget download ) and exporting the current list of packages so you can reuse it on other devices ( winget export ). Find out more by checking out the official Winget documentation from Microsoft.