Microsoft Announces The Official “Windows Package Manager”
<https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/20/microsoft_announces_official_windows_package/>: Among the best features of Linux is the availability of package managers, such as Debian's Apt, that can install, remove and manage dependencies for applications from the command line. It is not perfect – dependency version issues or broken configuration files can be a problem – but most of the time it makes it easy to get what you want, and is scriptable. Many users would like Windows to be equally convenient to use. Only it’s not quite there yet: More seriously, the current preview is limited to installation; it does not even have a remove option for packages. It does not auto-update packages or even have any mechanism to update them, and there is no specific dependency management. On the to-do list are features including uninstall, update, and Store app support. Hence the filing of a bug report pointing out that “All it does is downloading installers (which are not packages) and executing them (which is not management)”.
This follow up article <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/28/appget_replaced_by_winget_says_dev/> on WinGet, besides talking about a developer who feels Microsoft unfairly copied his ideas, also mentions the many and varied other attempts at providing package-management type services for Windows: ... Senior program manager Demitrius Nelon said: "What about _insert any other package manager here_? We think they are great... We have already talked with a few of the well-known package manager teams. Chocolatey has a vibrant community with a massive collection of applications, and a rich history supporting both open-source and enterprise customers. Scoop provides a convenient way to allow software to be installed without the UAC popups. Ninite keeps an eye on updates for all the apps it installed. There are many others like AppGet, Npackd and the PowerShell-based OneGet package manager-manager." (Interesting omission of NuGet, though.) I think Ninite was the one that received a cease-and-desist from Adobe for trying to wrap the latter’s installers in its own format. Which points up the fundamental flaw in all these approaches: proprietary vendors simply do not want unified package-management systems.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro