Chocolatey

What is Chocolatey?

Chocolatey is a developer-centric package manager that allows you to install and update Windows applications through a command line interface. Unlike manual installations, Chocolatey handles the process of adding, updating, and uninstalling programs in the background, requiring very little user interaction.

The project is community-driven, and the package feed is maintained by members of the Chocolatey community.

Most Chocolatey packages are designed to download an application’s official executable and install it without further user interaction.

Advantages?

• Chocolatey installs programs mainly from official sources, ensuring that you get the latest and most secure versions.
• It provides an easy ‘one click’ solution for downloading and updating software, with a vast selection of available and well-maintained programs.
• You still have control over the updating schedule, and there’s no need to manually check for updates.

How does it work?

1. Install Chocolatey via PowerShell.
2. Check the Chocolatey website for the programs you want to install. (the website)
3. Install them via PowerShell
4. Keep your programs up-to-date with Chocolatey & other maintenance tasks.

Install Chocolatey

To install Chocolatey, open PowerShell as an administrator and run the following command:

@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"

For more information, see the the Chocolatey Documentation.

Check which program you want to install

The Chocolatey Website lists all available packages. For each package, you can find detailed information about the software, installation, update, and uninstallation commands.

For example, if you want to install Firefox, you can find the relevant commands and additional parameters available for the installation command - e.g. to create a taskbar shortcut, configure auto update, etc.

Install software via PowerShell

To install Firefox using Chocolatey, open PowerShell with administrator privileges and enter the command:

choco install firefox

Example of using additional Parameters. E.g. you don’t want a Desktop Shortcut:

choco install firefox --params "/NoDesktopShortcute"

Chocolatey will download Firefox from the official source and install it on your machine (the standard directory for installation is: ProgramData\chocolatey\lib)

You can also install multiple programs at once, or use additional parameters to customize the installation.

choco install firefox atom notepadplusplus zotero

If you need to set up multiple machines or reinstall windows regularly, you can create a batch file. In the example .bat file below, each program is listed on a new line to have a cleaner overview (the -y parameter is used to skip the confirmation within PowerShell):

:::::::::: Personal install script

:::: Install choco .exe and add choco to PATH
@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"

:::::: Cleans temp files once a week
choco install choco-cleaner -y

:::::: Install all the packages
:::: Browsers
choco install firefox -y
choco install googlechrome -y
choco install ungoogled-chromium -y

:::: Text editors / IDEs
choco install atom -y
choco install notepadplusplus -y
choco install texstudio -y
choco install vscode --params "/NoDesktopIcon /NoContextMenuFiles /NoContextMenuFolders" vscode --params "/NoDesktopIcon /NoContextMenuFiles /NoContextMenuFolders" -y

The complete .bat file I use can be found here.

Keep software up-to-date / other maintenance tasks

To check for available updates, run

choco outdated (lists available updates)

To update a specific program, use the command (example firefox):

choco upgrade firefox

To update all programs, use:

choco upgrade all

More info: Chocolatey Documentation

Other useful commands:

Chocolatey also provides other useful commands, such as listing all installed packages and freezing program updates.

To list all installed packages

choco list --local-only

To delete a package (example Firefox):

choco uninstall firefox

To freeze program updates (don’t update with the upgrade command), you can either pin the current version:

choco pin firefox (won’t update until unpinned) or

choco upgrade all --except="firefox" (skip an update once)

More info: Chocolatey Documentation

Cleaning Cache - free up space

To free up disk space by deleting unnecessart residual files (such as old installation files or log file), I recommend installing the (unofficial) Choco Cleaner script:

choco install choco-cleaner

More info: (unofficial) Choco Cleaner (Script + Task)