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Comment by mclarty | Hacker News Reader

For Windows, I use a PowerShell that launches a install of Choco followed by a bunch of Choco installs. For Mac, I have a bash script that installs homebrew then runs a bunch of brew and cask commands, installs xcode utils, and then command lines some App Store installs that aren’t available from cask.

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I prefer https://scoop.sh for windows - although I've yet to try it for service/server installs.

But for personal tools, it feels a lot like using apt - but geared towards installation in the home dir (like xstow).

As far as I can tell scoop does support installs for multiple users/services too, though.

To be clear regarding multiple computers and servers so doesn't chocolatey, which is the the actual name of the app the parent post is using choco is the call to the package manager. I'm a little worried about bypassing UAC on Windows with Scoop but it's always good to have options.

I think I'd rather say "sidestep" UAC - if you drop an exe in your "documents" folder, there's no UAC prompt. Scoop doesn't write to protected areas by default.

I suppose it's entirely possible to change this via draconian policies (to have the equivalent of mounting home noexec) - and conversely, for global installs - you need to abide by UAC in the form of "sudo":

https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/Global-Installs

This is helpful for windows/posh driven installs: https://boxstarter.org/

I do this too. It’s worked well for me. I have three macs and six windows machines for work where I like to keep config in sync. I generally assume the scripts work (and they do usually still work, especially on windows). Until they break when I hunt down the problem and fix it.

I’ve gone through a few iterations but for me it’s come down to getting things simpler so there is less to maintain.

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