>> Ninite is great for a small selection of apps, but it is not a package manager by any means.
I guess this is the root of my question, how does Chocolatey "manage packages" above and beyond what Windows already does with Add/Remove Programs?
I guess this is the root of my question, how does Chocolatey "manage packages" above and beyond what Windows already does with Add/Remove Programs?
For various reasons I don't use it much anymore, but it's really convenient to go to a new machine after a rebuild and just run a standard script of
choco install -y vim; choco install -y python # ...another 20 lines
and I'm up and running with all my standard apps. Having to download all those apps, verify the checksums and go through the install wizard can easily take a couple of hours. It's especially useful if you're spinning up a lot of vms.
As not everything is supported, this is only half a solution, but every bit helps.
Also, as a maintainer of one package[0] - although it's for developers, apparently sometimes there are problems installing the software on Windows and so it's a bit of effort every release and we can make at least a few users happy.