[derkoe]

Please don't use any of these. Use scoop - it just works https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/scoop No admin needed for almost all packages, "scoop update *" to update your system, authoring packages is very easy.

[chem83]

I like an I use scoop alongside winget after many years of Chocolatey, but there are many packages not available through scoop, mostly because there isn't a viable portable way to install them. Also, scoop does nothing to take advantage of the MSIX Containers that sandbox apps, so that they can be cleanly update and later removed.

I'm considering automating the conversion of my most used apps to MSIX, so they can get always installed in a clean way. That may break certain apps like Steam, which need to install outside the virtual FS, but I hear MSIX supports global registry an global FS access exceptions nowadays, so not all hope is lost.

[Jenk]

All scoop does is extract installers/archives from the applications own portable distributions, and then create shims for them. Scoop packages aren't actually packages. They are just manifests that point to a URL to the apps download, and a list of executables to make shims/shortcuts for and that is it.

There's the nonportable bucket for apps that have er.. nonportable versions.

[JoBrad]

For anyone new to scoop, it is seriously The way that package management should work, in Windows. Apps install as the user (so no admin needed), and scoop uses a “current” symlink to point to the current version of the apps you have installed. Switching between versions or even hard-linking to a specific version is trivial. I was a little disappointed to see that some folks are ditching it for winget. While we definitely don’t need to go back to the Wild West “install things wherever you want” days, Windows needs a good package management ecosystem that works responsibly.