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guinget

Unofficial GUI for Microsoft's Windows Package Manager (winget). Kinda like Synaptic, but for Windows. Not associated with either Microsoft or the Synaptic project, and Microsoft does not endorse this software.

How to use guinget

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This guide is up-to-date as of version 0.1.3. You can get here at any time from Help>How to use guinget, or by pressing F1. There’s a video showing how to use guinget available if you prefer watching videos, but it only covers up to version 0.1.0.1.

Version 0.1.2’s usage guide isn’t as refined, but it only describes features that are in version 0.1.2.

Running guinget as administrator

Please don’t run guinget as administrator in version 0.1.3 or higher, as winget seems to have an issue updating its sources when running elevated (which is what guinget does if guinget itself is elevated). If you need to install a package with winget elevated, please use the Elevate winget (UAC) checkbox in the Apply changes window as described in the Installation options section below. Be sure to use the Update winget sources menu item described in the Updating winget sources section below if winget complains that it can’t find that package/package version, then try installing that package again.

Hopefully someday this won’t be a problem, but it will be until then.

Refreshing package cache

To refresh the cache, all you have to do is one of the following:

Once you’ve started the update, just wait for it to complete, and try again if there are issues.

Loading the package list and details will take a bit and may lock up slightly on slower systems, such as virtual machines. Additionally, please be aware that the main window cannot be moved while loading the package list and details, though this is something I want to allow.

Updating winget sources

Sometimes winget’s sources will be out of date when you try to install something (even though it should automatically update before installation). If that’s the case, you can update winget’s sources without dropping into CMD using Package list>Update winget sources. This will run winget source update.

After it’s finished, the window will stay open and you can close it. Currently it stays open just in case there’s a problem that has to be fixed manually.

Viewing package details

In addition to a few details in the package list, full package details are displayed in the textbox below the package list. By default, the last package selected will have its details shown, but you can change it so only the first package selected (when using multi-select) has its details shown by unchecking Show last-selected package details when selecting multiple packages in Tools>Options...>Package Details.

Please be aware that showing the last-selected package details might not work properly if you use Shift+Click and the selection switches to go above the first-selected package as that makes it show the first-clicked package’s details.

Show in winget

You can show a single package’s details in winget in a few ways:

Please note this isn’t available if more than one package is selected at once.

Marking a package

Marking a package involves doing one of the following actions:

This also applies to marking a package for uninstallation (once that’s available), or for marking a package as one you want to ignore (ignoring is Do nothing).

If you wish to unmark or ignore a package, press Ctrl+D or use Action: Do nothing in either the package context menu or the Selected packages menu. You can also use the combobox dropdown menu as described above.

Using the arrow keys to move the cell selection may not work sometimes, as I had some issue getting it to work during testing.

Marking multiple packages

To mark multiple packages, use these instructions:

  1. First, select them with the mouse (using Shift and Ctrl like you would for a list of files) or select them using Shift and the arrow keys.
  2. After selecting the packages you want to mark, do one of the following to mark them as you wish:
    • Right-click on one of the selected packages and use Action: (action) menu items
    • Use the Selected package>Action: (action) menu items
    • Press Ctrl+I to mark them all for install or Ctrl+D to unmark/ignore them

Please refer to the Marking a package section for more details.

Applying marked changes

Marked changes are applied using the Apply changes dialog, accessible through any of the following:

Using the Confirm changes button will bulk-apply all listed changes. Alternatively, you can apply one change at a time by double-clicking or pressing Enter on each package in the list to install (or uninstall, when that’s available) it when ready.

If you have issues with winget while applying changes, you can close and reopen the Apply changes window to reset the controls and packages to the Ready state to try again, perhaps with different options as described below.

Installation options

The following installation options are available:

These will persist across closing the Apply changes window and restarting or upgrading guinget. Additionally, some options may also apply to actions like uninstallation.

Installation options can also be changed from Tools>Options...>Apply Changes. This tab will have slightly more detailed names for the options, but they’re similar to the equivalent ones in the Apply changes window. In some cases, this will be the only place to change certain options, but a link will be added to the Apply changes window to open this tab if that’s ever the case.

Searching for packages

You can search for packages using the search bar in the toolbar at the top of the window. This only filters the Package column for now, but other columns are planned to be supported. To start a search, do one of the following:

After typing in what you want to search for, either press Enter or click the Search toolbar button. Once you’ve finished searching, you can press Ctrl+F again to set focus back to the package list if the search box is still focused. Please be aware that using Ctrl+A to select all packages in the search results currently selects even non-filtered packages.

You can use Esc/Escape and press Enter or, as described below, double-click the sidebar search term list’s All entry at the top to get back to the full package list.

Search for package ID in either the package context menu or in the Selected packages menu will, as the name implies, search for the package ID as long as only one package is selected. This won’t be available if more than one package is selected at a time in version 0.1.3 and above.

By default, there’s a sidebar that shows your search terms from the current session, but you can hide it in a few ways:

Double-clicking/pressing Enter on the All entry at the top of the sidebar search terms list returns you to an unfiltered list.

You can clear all search terms or only selected search terms from the search terms list using the context menu. Please note that the All entry at the top will always be there and trying to remove it by clearing all search terms will put it back.

Search options

Search options can be changed from the Tools>Options...>Search tab, though there’s a shortcut to this tab available in the following ways:

Searches are now re-run after a cache update if there’s text in the search box at the time of re-loading the package list, but you can turn that off by unchecking the Re-run search after cache update checkbox from the search options tab as described above.

By default, using the selected package ID search feature will do an exact match, but you can turn that off using the Use exact match for selected package ID search checkbox in the search options tab as described above.

Edit winget settings

You can edit winget’s settings using Tools>Edit winget settings. If you wish to edit winget’s settings for an administrator account, use Tools>Edit winget settings as admin (UAC) instead. Both will run winget settings, with the second one running it elevated.

Resetting guinget’s options to default

If something breaks, you can use the Defaults button in the bottom-left corner of the Options window to reset everything, then click OK to save the default values. Some options like the one to hide unfinished controls and experimental stuff requires guinget to be restarted to take effect. Please be aware that if the guinget cache is what’s broken, you’ll have to manually delete it from %AppData%\winget-frontends\source for now. However, if winget’s cache is broken, that may require resetting its sources from a command-line since there’s no option for that in guinget yet.

Switch tabs with mouse scroll wheel

You can switch tab control tabs like the ones in the Options window using the mouse scroll wheel, just like many Linux applications. This is provided by libscrollswitchtabs.

Showing unfinished controls

Controls that don’t yet have their features implemented are hidden by default, but you can show them if you wish. Here’s how to do this:

  1. Uncheck Hide unfinished controls and experimental stuff from Tools>Options...>Experimental.
  2. Reopen the tab.

You may need to restart guinget for this change to take full effect, though unchecking it should show everything without requiring a restart.

Version 0.1.3 also hides experimental options behind this feature, so you’ll have to show experimental controls if you want to change experimental options. Please note that experimental options will stay active even if the controls are hidden again.