Ok so following on from my recent post on how to remove unwanted bloatware and junk from your windows 10 installation, I needed to install third party applications on to several new machines and was looking for a quick and easy way to do it.
Enter Chocolatey!
I’ve created a Youtube tutorial for all those who would like to watch rather than read. See below:
I needed to open Powershell (as Admin) where I proceeded to check my Execution Policy:
Get-ExecutionPolicy
this returned Unrestricted from my earlier process of removing the bloatware. If you’re coming at this fresh, yours will likely return Restricted. It’s easy enough to fix, you can write the following:
Set-ExecutionPolicy AllSigned
This then allows you to run the following script:
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString(‘https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1’))
At which point, Powershell will download and configure Chocolatey. A few seconds later and you’re done. That’s all it needed. In order to install applications (a full list of the packages available can be found here) you now write the following command in Powershell (always as Admin):
choco install yourapplication i.e. choco install vlc, or choco install skype, or choco install googlechrome.
That’s it. Wait a few moments and it automatically downloads and configures the package for you. No more searching the web for software packages. You no longer need to download the executable files, extract them, run them, then delete them after. This simple command replaces all of that.
Should you wish to remove the application it’s just a matter of typing:
choco remove yourapplication
To reinstall:
choco reinstall yourapplication
To update an application individually:
choco update yourapplication
To list what you’ve installed via choco:
choco list –local-only
It’s really as simple as that. After every command you are normally greeted with permissioning i.e. Are you sure you want to run the script etc? In order to skip that and automate it, you can just type -y after the command. i.e.
choco install yourapplication -y
To automatically update everything on the list in one go (this can be automated using task manager)
cup all -y (this is short for choco upgrade)
But there’s more!!!
Below is currently a list of what I have installed via chocolatey:
Note on here you can sometimes see duplicate programs, i.e. 7zip 19.0 is installed, but also so is 7zip.install 19.0. I can only think that this is due to a small installer program that works alongside to deliver the main package. You can also see it with discord and phraseexpress. This means if you want to uninstall, you need to also remove the .install package with it, for instance:
choco uninstall 7zip -y
choco uninstall 7zip.install -y
An easier way to go through multiple installs / uninstalls at once is to add them on one line, for example:
choco install skype vlc 7zip whatsapp telegram slack -y
So with literally one line you can install your favourite applications, and with one line (cup all -y) you can keep them updated to the latest and greatest.
This is a game changer for me. As the family’s resident IT support, having set this up to automatically update the applications every few days (check here – https://chocolatey.org/packages/choco-upgrade-all-at) , I am no longer plagued with various applications not working or being called to help update things.
Pop a comment below if this was useful for you, or better still chuck me a like on the youtube video!
Cheers,
Andy