winget: install and update programs with one command

Installing a program on Windows has traditionally looked like this: Google the name, hope you've landed on the official site and not a page full of fake Download buttons, click through a wizard, decline the bundled toolbar. Yet Windows has included the winget package manager for years now: one terminal command downloads and installs a program from Microsoft's verified catalog — and another command updates everything on your computer in one go.

How to do it

1. Open a terminal (Win + X → Terminal). Winget ships with modern Windows 10 and 11 — check it with winget --version.
2. Find a program with winget search name — for example, winget search vlc lists the available packages with their identifiers.
3. Install it with winget install --id VideoLAN.VLC (using the identifier from the previous step). No wizard, no checkboxes for bundled software — the install just happens.
4. The most powerful command: winget upgrade lists every program with a newer version available, and winget upgrade --all updates all of them at once. Computer maintenance in one command and one cup of coffee.
5. A bonus for switching computers: winget export -o apps.json saves a list of installed programs to a file, and winget import -o apps.json installs all of them again on a new computer.

A typical scenario

A new work laptop. The old way: an afternoon spent walking through websites — browser, editor, Git, a mail client, a media player, a compression tool — with twenty separate install wizards. The new way: one file with the list, winget import, and off you go for coffee. Half an hour later, the computer is set up with everything the old one had.

And every month after that: instead of ignoring “a new version is available” notices in ten different programs, you run winget upgrade --all and enjoy peace of mind — security patches included, ones that would otherwise go unapplied.

What you get out of it

• Safer downloads: packages come from a verified catalog, not a random site with a big green Download button.
• Updates that actually happen: one command instead of twenty annoying dialogs means programs actually stay up to date.
• A new computer in half an hour: an exported app list turns moving to a new machine into a routine instead of a full-day project.

Pro tip

Winget pairs beautifully with aliases and scripts: set up an alias like up that runs winget upgrade --all — and system maintenance shrinks to two letters you type whenever you're stepping away from the computer. A handful of programs manage their own updates (browsers are the typical case), and winget may report version mismatches for those — just skip them; it takes care of the rest.