Painless Windows Workstation Setup with Boxstarter | Hacker News Reader

Painless Windows Workstation Setup with Boxstarter

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65 pointsmbhoneycutt28 comments

This seems like a slightly more technical version of https://ninite.com/ ... Most users just want to grab their usual suspects of 5-15 apps on a fresh machine and GO!

I want to use Boxstarter to build a VM template but I've never really used any of the items it mentions. I realize it isn't trying to complete with ninite, but I sure would like a "click x buttons then hit download" version of this Boxstarter/Chocolatey stuff.

I have a feeling we're going to see some really interesting things very similar to this coming out of Redmond in the near future. With Microsoft's announcement of One-Get (an official Windows package manager that essentially wraps Choclatey), I think Powershell might finally be getting some much needed attention.

--Could you (or someone) explain what benefit microsoft would see in this type of pm over the app store that comes with windows 8?

This looks like the type of side project that gets killed once it gains too much momentum and a low level exec gets wind of its possible trajectory.

Because really, if you're looking at the current strategy, it's moving away from this type of dev stuff and more towards easy-to-use-and-fun-GUI stuff. At last year's build I remember them showing a way to put private corporate apps in their store that would only be available with a special key or something. So while I'd love this, it seems doubtful that they'd ever really give something like this too much air.--

EDIT::

I stand corrected, apparently even though they're using google groups and google code for hosting, OneGet was actually demoed at Build2014 and they're working with Chocolatey to get it working. I'm blown away at the amo0unt of commitment and effort already expended, it might be a new Microsoft after all!

There is no way of delivering classic Windows apps (non-Metro, that is) through app store. That might be fine for consumer users in a couple of years if there's a decent offering of great Metro apps, but I doubt Visual Studio is ever going to go Metro.

I don't think they need to invest billions in such thing, even acknowledging chocolatey and not making life worse for it is a good and useful thing for them to do.

These targets developer and tech savvy users who prefer command line over GUI, no reason it can't act as interface for store also.

Can you provide a link for One-Get? I'm having trouble locating any sort of an announcement.

https://github.com/OneGet/oneget

Those tools are great and all, but my setup usually involves more than just installing applications.

I have a huge pile of registry files which change a lot of windows behaviour. I have configuration files which need to be copied to the right places. I want certain shortcuts in certain places with certain icons. No tool is able to do those things nor are the ones who can do one of these very good or complete.

On paper it doesn't sound so complicated. Install these 12 applications, copy these dotfiles to $HOME, these to $SETUPLOCATION. Setup shortcuts and disable the Caps Lock Key, the Firewall and the Library function.

In reality I have a ton of tools stacking ontop of each other littering everything with package identification files. Tools which only download over the net because they act like package managers but probably fail because the network hasn't been setup (which they probably can't do on their own anyway). And if the application you want is not available you spent more time creating packages than the whole process would have saved you even if you ran it a hundred times. Tools which describe the whole process in lovely xml files. Modifications are chosen from a list and never have what you want and the scripting support for additional features looks more complicated than the lovely registry file that contains ""Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,01,00,3a,00,00,00,5b,e0,\ 00,00,5c,e0,00,00,00,00" which probably doesn't make sense to anyone.

You have to put a lot of trust in this Chocolatey thing ... do we know who is behind this ?

The potential for a big security breach, especially in a Windows environment, is making me less enthusiast than I should be.

I've just started using Chocolatey and it's been a mixed experience. Overall, a speedy way to install software (no clicking, just type) but sometimes the packages are broken, so don't install, or don't include (for example) whatever is needed to be uninstalled.

I'm not sure if there's any auditing on packages, which look to be submitted by individuals or small teams to their "gallery." I have a few misgivings about that in the same way as some of the unofficial repositories on CentOS or Ubuntu (which I also use).

I'd like to recommend this in a production environment (I'm a config specialist at the moment ;) but I know what my manager would say. Useful at home though.

Actually I have used it in the past in a production environments to setup laptops for my former colleagues. Not only it installed stuff everybody needed anyway, it also did setup the printer (non-trivial for not so technical folks) and created some basic short cuts on the Desktop.

But I would assume that it behaves differently and fresh Windows installations and private installations that usually tend to be messier...

I tried using it to install some software, I think related to Ruby or Node? on a Windows box. At the time (a year ago) it seemed to be some buggy batch scripts that didn't accomplish anything. I also seem to recall it having you run scripts downloaed over HTTP. Hopefully this has all changed if Microsoft is picking it up.

Fear not! Chocolatey[0] is open source.

[0] - https://github.com/chocolatey/chocolatey

Open source doesn't mean secure, it means we can audit the code.

OpenSSL is open source too for that matter.

Agreed. I should have made it clear that I was responding more about the "who is behind this?" question and their possible motives, rather than passing judgement on whether it is secure or not.

Chocolatey actually has been arround a long time... It was one of the first concepts that wrapped Nuget arround itself to install software packages.

And it worked :)

It's like apt-get

It's maintained by Rob Reynolds who works at Puppet Labs.

How does Chocolatey cope with install options? The author's example script names a lot of programs to install but no further options for them.

If I install a bunch of programs with Chocolatey, will I end up with ten yahoo toolbars and a trial version of every antivirus product, because the bundled crapware for each app is installed by default?

It all depends on the package maintainer(s).

If you're not happy with exactly what they've provided, it gets a little more complicated; you'll need to edit the packages (written in Powershell) themselves.

Scott Hanselman has a nice write-up/example here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IsTheWindowsUserReadyForAptget...

I really like the idea behind Chocolatey, but in the end the time that I spent fiddling with packages minimized any potential time savings.

However, if you're not picky about your software, just need a quick copy of something, or only want to test something out, I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.

I've never had adware/toolbars or such installed by chocolatey, can't speak for others though. I use when I want a quick way of getting for example the JRE without crap installed.

You shouldn't be installing what is essentially scamware anyways.

Even JDK comes with some. I find the situation pretty hopeless.

Hmm... so visual studio professional setup is that easy?

Don't you need a license key per windows instance or something?

I'm not dissing VS, I have 2012 and 2010 on my windows partition, just wondering if it's really that easy.

VS asks for a key the first time you run it.

Since 2013 it doesn't even do that. It connects to your MSDN-account to check if you have the required licenses.

At least mine does..

Same. It punches through to an account with licensing on it. Specific VS licensing, too, as our MSDN account doesn't offer anything other than the installer unless we opt to buy seats.

Mine needed a key, I guess because I bought it off the shelf.

I am quite sure that you don't need steam for a workstation unless you really mean a home gaming/work computer setup.

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