The real mvp comes from one of the best website hosts in the world. If you have to be on windows and especially if you’re setting up a fresh install; use www.ninite.com.
It bypasses all the prompts and warnings and opt in\out prompts of a ton of common programs you’d want to install on your PC into one single and quick install. You check mark each of the programs you want from the list (web browsers, anti virus, video players, etc) and it hands you over a single install file to take care of automatically installing them all at once. Best website their is if you’re a windows user. I’ve counted on this gem for well over a decade. I only have one PC left that I keep windows on now, and I’ll be swapping that over to Linux as well by November this year when windows 10 stops getting security updates.
The great thing about ninite is how you can go there ahead of time and generate a single file, and when you’re done installing you just run that file. I suppose one could generate a batch script that installs stuff with some other package manager (you’d need to include install/update for it first, I remember reading about how Winget can come outdated with a broken version), but the issue with that is simply that ninite definitively exists and works reliably, while I don’t know any such service to generate install scripts.
I had to dig through the website shoving paid services down my throat and found the script builder, is that what you mean? If yes, I can see it generate either a command using chocolatey, or a config file (to feed chocolatey?), which seems to require me to install chocolatey manually first.
Looks like it doesn’t meet the basic requirement of being a standalone script, and requires you to do extra setup first. I’m also very much not a fan of the website so far, but I can give it a pass since ninite being opinionated in the package choice is a subjective thing.
Making a script that automatically installs chocolatey (using the method described on the website) and then runs the installs is trivial. (I know cuz for a long time I used such a script)
Or, I can just not use a program like chocolatey and just go one and done on ninite. Heaven forbid they only have apps on there to choose from that are popular and people want to install. I’ve never had issues with any of the programs being behind on version, but it isn’t like each program can’t check for newer versions of itself
The real mvp comes from one of the best website hosts in the world. If you have to be on windows and especially if you’re setting up a fresh install; use www.ninite.com.
It bypasses all the prompts and warnings and opt in\out prompts of a ton of common programs you’d want to install on your PC into one single and quick install. You check mark each of the programs you want from the list (web browsers, anti virus, video players, etc) and it hands you over a single install file to take care of automatically installing them all at once. Best website their is if you’re a windows user. I’ve counted on this gem for well over a decade. I only have one PC left that I keep windows on now, and I’ll be swapping that over to Linux as well by November this year when windows 10 stops getting security updates.
Skip the proprietary ninite and just use a proper package manager, like chocolatey, scoop, or winget.
Ninite relies on a private company to add popularly requested programs, and has an extremely small, often outdated repository of packages.
If you must have a GUI, chocolatey has that as well.
I mean, isn’t that how package managers work too? Just relying on the default repo of each one, since most users won’t work with new sources.
The great thing about ninite is how you can go there ahead of time and generate a single file, and when you’re done installing you just run that file. I suppose one could generate a batch script that installs stuff with some other package manager (you’d need to include install/update for it first, I remember reading about how Winget can come outdated with a broken version), but the issue with that is simply that ninite definitively exists and works reliably, while I don’t know any such service to generate install scripts.
Chocolatey was literally mentioned, and it can do exactly this
I had to dig through the website shoving paid services down my throat and found the script builder, is that what you mean? If yes, I can see it generate either a command using chocolatey, or a config file (to feed chocolatey?), which seems to require me to install chocolatey manually first.
Looks like it doesn’t meet the basic requirement of being a standalone script, and requires you to do extra setup first. I’m also very much not a fan of the website so far, but I can give it a pass since ninite being opinionated in the package choice is a subjective thing.
Making a script that automatically installs chocolatey (using the method described on the website) and then runs the installs is trivial. (I know cuz for a long time I used such a script)
You could also just use winutil https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil Which has a bunch of other neat things for initial setup too.
Or, I can just not use a program like chocolatey and just go one and done on ninite. Heaven forbid they only have apps on there to choose from that are popular and people want to install. I’ve never had issues with any of the programs being behind on version, but it isn’t like each program can’t check for newer versions of itself