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I currently installed a dual boot Ubuntu and windows 8 and as a new guy to Linux I love all the features it has over windows, like for instances the terminal, which allows me to install programs in two sentences etc, so as I go back to windows 8 and begin installing the programs, I feel like its a burden.

My question is that, does cmd prompt allow for programs to be got from the web and installed, in a similar fashion to Linux terminal, cause it would greatly improve my day to day work

Matchbox2093
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  • You just launch the installers from a command prompt. Can you clarify your question? – Ramhound Jun 05 '15 at 13:10
  • sorry probably should of mentioned that, i know it can be done by running the installer exes. i was wondering about actually getting the installer from the web and installing it in one go.....say in ubuntu, all i need to write is "sudo apt-get install skype", it would then get and install skype for me – Matchbox2093 Jun 05 '15 at 13:15
  • There is no such application repository for Windows. The closest you will get is the Windows Store, which has a GUI interface. The PortableApps repository is also a GUI that has a lot of free software available and it auto-updates. http://portableapps.com/ – paradroid Jun 05 '15 at 13:17
  • oh! learn something new everyday ha, i thought i would be interesting to find something similar to the terminal but i guess it aint possible....+1 for linux i guess ha – Matchbox2093 Jun 05 '15 at 13:18
  • @Matchbox2093 - Windows 10 will have [OneGet](https://github.com/OneGet/oneget) support out of the box. I will publish a proper answer by the end of the day. – Ramhound Jun 05 '15 at 13:22
  • funny you say that, i just reserved my copy of windows 10 (free for one year to windows 8 and 7 users), so if this is true i might have to install windows 10 in july :) though im greatly enjoying the freedom of linux atm so it might just be my "go to OS" from now on – Matchbox2093 Jun 05 '15 at 13:25

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First, cmd.exe (command prompt) is slowly being replaced by PowerShell. You should be using PowerShell and forget the command prompt. Ok, now that you're using PowerShell, you should be using OneGet (https://github.com/OneGet/oneget). This is a front-end PowerShell-based command line installer which interfaces with many different online repositories (Chocolatey, etc.). Speaking of Chocolatey, you can also just use that - (https://chocolatey.org) - but I recommend OneGet because you can hook it right into the choco repo but also use your own (among several others). OneGet is an open-source project which can be installed on OS's as old as Win7 and comes as a part of Windows 10. It will give you commands like:

install-package find-package uninstall-package

etc ...

Progger
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There's a utility called Chocolatey and, in my opinion, it's better than the traditional sudo apt get install packagename. The commands for specific programs are way more intuitive. For instance: sudo apt-get install vlc browser-plugin-vlc becomes choco install vlc.

Chocolatey is installed primarily using 3rd parties whereas many Linux repositories installed via CLI are from the direct sources. I personally prefer Chocolatey because of how intuitive it is to jump right into however there are alternatives that offer slightly better features. Like OneGet for PowerShell, it offers various search features, nice simple commands, etc...

Heres a tutorial for hooking up both: http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2014/11/5-minute-setup-using-oneget-chocolatey-windows-10/

  • Windows 10 native support for OneGet, through Powershell, will have support for Chocolatey so Microsoft agrees that Chocolatey has its uses.. – Ramhound Jun 05 '15 at 14:46
  • https://superuser.com/questions/957712/how-do-i-use-windows-10-built-in-package-manager – Jonathan Aug 15 '15 at 16:33
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There are a couple ways, but they're not necessarily first-party supported or as smooth as Linux. First, a couple of third-party "package managers" do exist for the Windows platform. The one I hear most about is Chocolatey (available from https://chocolatey.org). This software will let you download and install packages from repositories maintained by third parties (or even your own repositories).

If you can wait until Windows 10, a package manager will be implemented with PowerShell. If you cannot wait until then, you can also do a poor-man's download and installation using the "wget" command in PowerShell and launching the downloaded executable.

ForensicITGuy
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