Ninite: Easy PC Setup and Multi-App Installer (from BaseShield, YC W08) | Hacker News Reader

Ninite: Easy PC Setup and Multi-App Installer (from BaseShield, YC W08)

ninite.com

133 pointsskuzins28 comments

This is amazing and will probably result in Dell selling me a Windows 7 laptop about 6 months ahead of schedule, simply because I was not looking forward to doing a day of setup during which I could get no productive work done.

I seriously wish there was a convenient way to give you whatever the affiliate commission on a new laptop is.

Here's the opposite of Ninite for new Dell PCs http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

This just saved me hours of time. I'm flying home in a couple of weeks and reinstalling XP on 5 different computers in two days. I'm going to image the first HDD to the other 4 computers, but installing all the basic apps with one installer is a god send. Thanks!

I hope these guys grow this to be an Appstore/APT alike software channel. There's definitely a need for that on Windows. Edit: ok, they already did that http://baseshield.com/

Are you considering ever adding sponsored apps to the list of apps in the free version?

This looks incredibly handy for fresh Windows installs, thank you! Bookmarked for the next time I install a VM or so.

I just looked up Baseshield, and I'm interested in how the two products fit together. Does installing stuff with Ninite preclude keeping it up to date with Baseshield?

I'd love something like this that could install all the windows tools I use on machines at work: Emacs, Cygwin, Mercurial (TortoiseHG), Sysinternals, Wireshark, iperf, MySQL & PostgreSQL clients (e.g. pgAdminIII/phpPgAdmin) and either WAMP or XAMPP. MediaWiki, TrueCrypt and OCS Inventory would be nice too.

You can suggest new apps to add at the bottom.

Maybe they could deal with too many options by having expandable sections labelled "Developer" or "DBA" etc?

Would love to see a Mac version of this.

Wouldn't that just be a folder?

If only. A significant fraction of apps use installers.

Regardless, it's much easier to tick checkboxes with Ninite than it is to individually track files down.

If you have to make your own install packages, look into /Developer/Applications/Utilities/PackageMaker.app. (Need dev tools to be installed)

You can bundle all your apps and installer packages into one install package that makes roll out easier.

Would love to see links to "more info" on the software available directly in the "Pick your software" lineup. Some of those I've never heard of, and tried to click on them (multiple times... doh) to find out more.

Again changing names... Was previous http://getvolery.com

It would be good if somebody replied to my suggestion comments on site.

Great, but it's not quite there. I'm a geek--I know what all of these do, but I think you've got a chance to target people who don't know what they want. Great job so far!

Maybe a way for third-parties to make a Recommended Install List as a base to start from and promote it. e.g., A List for Web Developers, a Default List, an Essentials List, etc. Including comments from the list creator (a la Amazon's wishlists) explaining what the app is and why they use it or chose it for the list.

e.g., I could create an install list for my family, or for clients.

It's a good idea though.

This is a nice installer, but it doesn't keep programs up to date. The FileHippo Update Checker is a very small, pretty inconspicuous program that alerts me to new versions of software I have installed, which means I can turn off the Adobe, Apple, Java, Google, etc. updaters on my PC. http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/

Too bad it's still really annoying to turn off all those miscellaneous updaters.

Great idea! I'd love to see some more front-end work on the site. You guys need a logo for sure.

Nice. But for it to really be _there_, the tools should sync your present config files, directories, reg settings for each app and optionally apply them after install. I think that's where your premium account potential lies.

What's the business model?

http://ninite.com/accounts/premium

It's the Windows App Store, right?

The url for BaseShield App Store (in baseshield.com) links to the download. Is this intentional? (I was expecting to see a list of applications in a webpage)

Very nice. I was just starting to work on nearly the same idea. You must have had the idea before me. It looks good guys. Nice job!

wow, really wish i had this back when i was on windows, begrudgingly formatting my hard drive every year. would have saved me so much time and hassle. nice work!

Hey guys, this looks super great :-)

Nice one, good job!

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