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How Chocolatey made me lazy (and efficient)

Let’s talk about hot chocolate

No, not about the Starbucks Steamed milk with vanilla- and mocha-flavoured syrups. Topped with sweetened whipped cream and chocolate-flavoured drizzle Hot Chocolate. But about the other hot chocolate: Chocolatey…

What is Chocolatey?

Chocolatey is a decentralised package manager for Windows. You can compare this with apt-get (for Debian) or yum (for Centos and Fedora).

It is built on the open-source NuGet infrastructure and uses PowerShell as its focus to deliver packages.

© Chocolatey.com

Why do I use it?

Three weeks ago, I was first introduced to Chocolatey. Since then I’m practically sold to this free product. Why? Because it makes me work much more efficiently. I initially used it to install my new laptops, but now I’m exploring the possibilities of it to create a private repository for our own packages.

Sounds great! How do I start?

Using Chocolatey is easy. The complete how to install can be found on this page, https://chocolatey.org/install but the commands below should be enough for the quick install.

  1. Open an administrative PowerShell console.
  2. Copy/ paste the following command:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; 
iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

3. Press “Enter” and you are done.

Packages

The system works with packages or a package server. You can find the community packages on the public Chocolatey repository: https://chocolatey.org/packages

Command: Choco eat

That’s not a real command, I know. The real command to install packages is

Choco install <your package> -y

 

Note: the parameter -y allows you to install the packages using auto settings, and auto accepting licenses.

© Chocolatey.com

To update your packages, use:

Choco upgrade <your package> -y

Commonly used packages

During the installation of my two new laptops, I installed the following packages, just using Choco. After one hour and two espressos, both laptops were completely installed, and that with just a few command lines.

Core packages

Package name Install command Site
7-Zip choco install 7zip -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/7zip
CCleaner choco install ccleaner -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/ccleaner
FileZilla choco install filezilla -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/filezilla
Google Chrome choco install googlechrome -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/GoogleChrome
Mozilla Firefox choco install firefox -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/Firefox
Notepad++ choco install notepadplusplus -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/notepadplusplus
Putty choco install putty -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/putty
VLC media player choco install vlc -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/vlc

Developer packages

Package name Install command Site
GIT choco install git -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/git
Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable Package choco install vcredist2012 -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/vcredist2012
SQL Server Management Studio choco install sql-server-management-studio -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/sql-server-management-studio
Visual Studio 2015 Community Update 3 choco install visualstudio2015community -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/VisualStudio2015Community
Visual Studio 2017 Community choco install visualstudio2017community -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/VisualStudio2017Community
Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise choco install visualstudio2017enterprise -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/visualstudio2017enterprise
Visual Studio Code choco install vscode -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/vscode
Visual Studio Code PowerShell Extension choco install vscode-powershell -y https://chocolatey.org/packages/vscode-powershell

Conclusion

Chocolatey speeds up the installation of your new machines with a few clicks and commands.

But that’s not it. If you want, you can create your own (private) package repository. Meaning you or your organisation, can roll out their own packages and implement their own application lifecycle.

If that’s not enough? Its free, fast, reliable and the time you normally spend on clicking “I agree”, “Next, Next”, “Finish”, you can use to write great new code, or get some more coffee!