wingetupd

A tiny command line tool, using WinGet to update a user-defined set of packages on a Windows machine.

What it is

It´s a simple and tiny tool named wingetupd.exe, used on the Windows command line. The tool works on top of the popular Windows-App WinGet. The tool uses WinGet, to update a specific user-defined set of packages, on a Windows machine.

When using WinGet to install and update Windows software, wingetupd.exe just wanna make your life a tiny bit easier, by updating all your software (or better said: a specific bunch of software) within a single call.

wingetupd.exe is specifically not designed to install packages, that actually aren´t already installed on your machine. It´s sole purpose is just to update your installed packages. Means: Before you can update some of your applications with this tool, you have to install them "by hand" or by using WinGet. In short: This tool can not (and want not) install any software. It´s just there for updating your already existing software.

By the way: WinGet is imo a fantastic piece of software, to manage all of your Windows applications and keep your Windows software up2date. Fat kudos 👍 to Microsoft here! For more information about WinGet itself, take a look at the WinGet page or use your Google-Fu techniques.

How it works

• When started, wingetupd.exe searches for a so-called package-file. The package-file is simply a file named "packages.txt", located in the same folder as the wingetupd.exe. The package-file contains a list of WinGet package-id´s (not package-names, this is important, see Notes section below).
• So, when wingetupd.exe is started and it founds a package-file, it just checks for each WinGet package-id listed in the package-file, if that package exists, if that package is installed and if that package has an update. If so, it updates the package. wingetupd.exe does all of this, by using WinGet internally.
• This means: All you have to do, is to edit the package-file and insert the WinGet package-id´s of your installed Windows applications you want to update. When wingetupd.exe is executed, it will try to update all that packages (aka "your Windows applications").

Parameters

wingetupd.exe knows the following parameters:

• --no-log
• --no-confirm
• --help

--no-log prevents wingetupd.exe from creating a log file. The log file contains all the internally used WinGet calls and their output, so you can exactly see how WinGet was used. Sometimes you just don´t want a log file (for whatever reason). Or maybe wingetupd.exe can´t create a log file, because it resides in a folder that has no write permissions (see Notes section below). In such situations this parameter is to the rescue.

--no-confirm prevents wingetupd.exe from asking the user for confirmation, if it should update the updatable packages. So you can use this parameter to automatically update all updatable packages, without asking for confirmation. This parameter is useful when running wingetupd.exe in scripts.

--help shows the usage screen and lists the wingetupd.exe parameters.

Requirements

There are not any special requirements, besides having WinGet installed on your machine. wingetupd.exe is just a typical command line ".exe" file for Windows. Just download the newest release, from the Releases page, unzip and run it. All the releases are compiled for x64, assuming you are using some 64-bit Windows (and that's quite likely).

Notes

• When wingetupd.exe starts, it creates a log file named "wingetupd.log" in the same folder.
• So keep in mind: That folder needs security permissions for writing files in it.
• Some locations like "C:\" or "C:\ProgramFiles" don´t have such security permissions (for a good reason).
• If you don´t wanna run wingetupd.exe just from Desktop, "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local" is fine too.
• You can also use the --no-log parameter, to prevent the creation of the log file (wingetupd.exe --no-log).
• All internally used WinGet calls are based on exact WinGet package-id´s (WinGet parameters: --exact --id).
• Use winget search, to find out the package-id´s (you put into the package-file) of your installed applications.
• Use the --no-confirm parameter, to automatically update packages, if wingetupd.exe is used inside a script.
• wingetupd.exe uses a timeout of 30 seconds, when waiting for WinGet to finish.
• Since some installations can take rather long, this timeout is increased to 60 minutes, while updates occur.
• The release binaries also contain a wingetupd.bat file, so you can run wingetupd.exe by a simple doubleclick.
• Q: Why this tool and not just winget --upgrade-all ? A: Often you don´t wanna update all stuff (i.e. runtimes).
• Q: Why this tool and not just some .bat or .ps script ? A: Maybe this is some better "out of the box" approach.
• At time of writing, the package-id Zoom.Zoom seems to missmatch the corresponding installed Zoom package.
• I assume the WinGet-Team will correct this wrong behaviour in their packages repository soon.
• WinGet doesn´t support being called in parallel. If you fork: Don´t use concurrency, like Task.WhenAll().
• wingetupd.exe is written in C#, is using .NET 6 and is built with Visual Studio 2022.
• If you wanna compile the source by your own, you just need Visual Studio 2022 (any edition). Nothing else.
• The release-binaries are compiled as self-contained .NET 6 .exe files, with "win-x64" as target.
• Self-contained: That´s the reason why the binariy-size is 15 MB and why there is no framework requirement.
• The .csproj source file contains some MSBUILD task, to create a zip file, when publishing with Visual Studio 2022.
• GitHub´s default .gitignore excludes VS publish-profiles, so i added a publish-settings screenshot to repo.
• The code is using the TAP pattern of .NET, including concurrency concepts like async/await and IProgress<>.
• wingetupd.exe just exists, because i am lazy and made my life a bit easier, by writing this tool. 😁

Have fun.