The last couple of years I have been using Mac for my main desktop and Ubuntu or various headless linux distros for VMs or container applications. That being said, I have been using Windows 10 for a while on one of my computers at home, but more for testing and maybe some gaming ;). I am now looking to do some more serious computing with Windows.
I recently had the opportunity to get a more portable computer for travel. I was going to get a Mac but I ended up getting a Surface Pro 4 with an I7 core and 16 GB of RAM (maybe I will write an article about my experiences with the Surface Pro). I have actually looked forward to this experience, as my main computer at my office is still a Mac and it feels like it has been a while since I have used a Windows computer consistently.
Using Windows more consistently this go around has been more fulfilling than I remember in past versions of the Windows OS for two reasons. The main reason for this has been the use of a package manager for Windows called Chocolatey. The other reason has been the use of the linux subsystem in Windows 10, but that is for another time.
Chocolatey as a package manager is available for Windows 7+ but I never used it when I was on older versions of Windows. I would say that part of experiences that make my linux and Mac experiences work well, especially when using the command line, are the package managers (apt-get, yum, apk, brew, etc…). Having this added to Windows, makes installs of my most used programs, that much easier. I would say Chocolatey is more comparable to brew on Mac, but it is a great way to keep track of the packages you have and which version of that package you are on.
You also have the option to use Chocolatey with a GUI, if you are more visual package management experience. There are also options to get pay versions of Chocolately if you are looking for more features or if you want to manage packages from an IT perspective on your company’s Windows computers.
Point being, as stated in the title, if you are using Windows and do not have a package manager, get Chocolately and make Windows easier for you ;).
Need to quickly install Chocolatey you can follow my simple guide to get started or the instructions from their website.
