Chocolatey Tips

PS C:\Users\user> choco install mingw
Chocolatey v1.1.0
Installing the following packages:
mingw
By installing, you accept licenses for the packages.
Progress: Downloading mingw 11.2.0.07112021… 100%

mingw v11.2.0.07112021 [Approved]
mingw package files install completed. Performing other installation steps.
The package mingw wants to run ‘chocolateyinstall.ps1’.
Note: If you don’t run this script, the installation will fail.
Note: To confirm automatically next time, use ‘-y’ or consider:
choco feature enable -n allowGlobalConfirmation
Do you want to run the script?([Y]es/[A]ll – yes to all/[N]o/[P]rint): y

Downloading mingw 64 bit
from ‘https://github.com/brechtsanders/winlibs_mingw/releases/download/11.2.0-12.0.1-9.0.0-r1/winlibs-x86_64-posix-seh-gcc-11.2.0-mingw-w64-9.0.0-r1.7z’
Progress: 100% – Completed download of C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\mingw\11.2.0.07112021\winlibs-x86_64-posix-seh-gcc-11.2.0-mingw-w64-9.0.0-r1.7z (63.33 MB).
Download of winlibs-x86_64-posix-seh-gcc-11.2.0-mingw-w64-9.0.0-r1.7z (63.33 MB) completed.
Hashes match.
Extracting C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\mingw\11.2.0.07112021\winlibs-x86_64-posix-seh-gcc-11.2.0-mingw-w64-9.0.0-r1.7z to C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mingw\tools\install…
C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mingw\tools\install
Testing path: C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mingw\tools\install\mingw32\bin
Testing path: C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mingw\tools\install\mingw64\bin
PATH environment variable does not have C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mingw\tools\install\mingw64\bin in it. Adding…
Environment Vars (like PATH) have changed. Close/reopen your shell to
see the changes (or in powershell/cmd.exe just type refreshenv).
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for addr2line.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for ar.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for as.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for c++.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for c++filt.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for ccache.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for cpp.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for dlltool.exe
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ShimGen has successfully created a shim for gcc-ar.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for gcc-nm.exe
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ShimGen has successfully created a shim for gcc.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for gcov-dump.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for gcov-tool.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for gcov.exe
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ShimGen has successfully created a shim for mac2unix.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for mingw32-make.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for ninja.exe
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ShimGen has successfully created a shim for objcopy.exe
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ShimGen has successfully created a shim for windres.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-c++.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc-11.2.0.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc-ar.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc-nm.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc-ranlib.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gdc.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gfortran.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for cc1.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for cc1obj.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for cc1objplus.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for cc1plus.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for collect2.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for d21.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for f951.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for g++-mapper-server.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for lto-wrapper.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for lto1.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for fixincl.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for gengtype.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for ar.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for as.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for dlltool.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for ld.bfd.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for ld.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for nm.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for objcopy.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for objdump.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for ranlib.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for readelf.exe
ShimGen has successfully created a shim for strip.exe
The install of mingw was successful.
Software installed to ‘C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mingw\tools\install’

Chocolatey installed 1/1 packages.
See the log for details (C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\logs\chocolatey.log).

PS C:\Users\user> choco /?
This is a listing of all of the different things you can pass to choco.

DEPRECATION NOTICE

The shims chocolatey, cinst, clist, cpush, cuninst and cup are deprecated.
We recommend updating all scripts to use their full command equivalent as these will be
removed in v2.0.0 of Chocolatey.

Options and Switches

-v, –version
Version – Prints out the Chocolatey version. Available in 0.9.9+.

Commands

• find – searches remote or local packages (alias for search)
• list – lists remote or local packages
• search – searches remote or local packages
• help – displays top level help information for choco
• info – retrieves package information. Shorthand for choco search pkgname –exact –verbose
• install – installs packages using configured sources
• pin – suppress upgrades for a package
• outdated – retrieves information about packages that are outdated. Similar to upgrade all –noop
• upgrade – upgrades packages from various sources
• uninstall – uninstalls a package
• pack – packages nuspec, scripts, and other Chocolatey package resources into a nupkg file
• push – pushes a compiled nupkg to a source
• new – creates template files for creating a new Chocolatey package
• sources – view and configure default sources (alias for source)
• source – view and configure default sources
• config – Retrieve and configure config file settings
• feature – view and configure choco features
• features – view and configure choco features (alias for feature)
• setapikey – retrieves, saves or deletes an apikey for a particular source (alias for apikey)
• apikey – retrieves, saves or deletes an apikey for a particular source
• unpackself – re-installs Chocolatey base files
• export – exports list of currently installed packages
• template – get information about installed templates
• templates – get information about installed templates (alias for template)

Please run chocolatey with choco command -help for specific help on
each command.

How To Pass Options / Switches

You can pass options and switches in the following ways:

• Unless stated otherwise, an option/switch should only be passed one
  time. Otherwise you may find weird/non-supported behavior.
• -, /, or -- (one character switches should not use --)
• Option Bundling / Bundled Options: One character switches can be
  bundled. e.g. -d (debug), -f (force), -v (verbose), and -y
  (confirm yes) can be bundled as -dfvy.
• NOTE: If debug or verbose are bundled with local options
  (not the global ones above), some logging may not show up until after
  the local options are parsed.
• Use Equals: You can also include or not include an equals sign
  = between options and values.
• Quote Values: When you need to quote an entire argument, such as
  when using spaces, please use a combination of double quotes and
  apostrophes ("'value'"). In cmd.exe you can just use double quotes
  ("value") but in powershell.exe you should use backticks
  (`"value`") or apostrophes ('value'). Using the combination
  allows for both shells to work without issue, except for when the next
  section applies.
• Pass quotes in arguments: When you need to pass quoted values to
  to something like a native installer, you are in for a world of fun. In
  cmd.exe you must pass it like this: -ia "/yo=""Spaces spaces""". In
  PowerShell.exe, you must pass it like this: -ia '/yo=""Spaces spaces""'.
  No other combination will work. In PowerShell.exe if you are on version
  v3+, you can try --% before -ia to just pass the args through as is,
  which means it should not require any special workarounds.
• Periods in PowerShell: If you need to pass a period as part of a
  value or a path, PowerShell doesn’t always handle it well. Please
  quote those values using “Quote Values” section above.
• Options and switches apply to all items passed, so if you are
  installing multiple packages, and you use --version=1.0.0, choco
  is going to look for and try to install version 1.0.0 of every
  package passed. So please split out multiple package calls when
  wanting to pass specific options.

Scripting / Integration – Best Practices / Style Guide

When writing scripts, such as PowerShell scripts passing options and
switches, there are some best practices to follow to ensure that you
don’t run into issues later. This also applies to integrations that
are calling Chocolatey and parsing output. Chocolatey uses
PowerShell, but it is an exe, so it cannot return PowerShell objects.

Following these practices ensures both readability of your scripts AND
compatibility across different versions and editions of Chocolatey.
Following this guide will ensure your experience is not frustrating
based on choco not receiving things you think you are passing to it.

• For consistency, always use choco, not choco.exe. Never use
  shortcut commands like cinst or cup (The shortcuts cinst
  and cup will be removed in v2.0.0).
• Always have the command as the first argument to choco. e.g.
  choco install, where install is the command.
• If there is a subcommand, ensure that is the second argument. e.g.
  choco source list, where source is the command and list is the
  subcommand.
• Typically the subject comes next. If installing packages, the
  subject would be the package names, e.g. choco install pkg1 pkg2.
• Never use ‘nupkg’ or point directly to a nupkg file UNLESS using
  ‘choco push’. Use the source folder instead, e.g. choco install <package id> --source="'c:\folder\with\package'" instead of
  choco install DoNotDoThis.1.0.nupkg or choco install DoNotDoThis --source="'c:\folder\with\package\DoNotDoThis.1.0.nupkg'".
• Switches and parameters are called simply options. Options come
  after the subject. e.g. choco install pkg1 --debug --verbose.
• Never use the force option (--force/-f) in scripts (or really
  otherwise as a default mode of use). Force is an override on
  Chocolatey behavior. If you are wondering why Chocolatey isn’t doing
  something like the documentation says it should, it’s likely because
  you are using force. Stop.
• Always use full option name. If the short option is -n, and the
  full option is --name, use --name. The only acceptable short
  option for use in scripts is -y. Find option names in help docs
  online or through choco -? /choco [Command Name] -?.
• For scripts that are running automated, always use -y. Do note
  that even with -y passed, some things / state issues detected will
  temporarily stop for input – the key here is temporarily. They will
  continue without requiring any action after the temporary timeout
  (typically 30 seconds).
• Full option names are prepended with two dashes, e.g. -- or
  --debug --verbose --ignore-proxy.
• When setting a value to an option, always put an equals (=)
  between the name and the setting, e.g. --source="'local'".
• When setting a value to an option, always surround the value
  properly with double quotes bookending apostrophes, e.g.
  --source="'internal_server'".
• If you are building PowerShell scripts, you can most likely just
  simply use apostrophes surrounding option values, e.g.
  --source='internal_server'.
• Prefer upgrade to install in scripts. You can’t install to a newer
  version of something, but you can choco upgrade which will do both
  upgrade or install (unless switched off explicitly).
• If you are sharing the script with others, pass --source to be
  explicit about where the package is coming from. Use full link and
  not source name (‘https://community.chocolatey.org/api/v2’ versus
  ‘chocolatey’).
• If parsing output, you might want to use --limit-output/-r to
  get output in a more machine parseable format. NOTE: Not all
  commands handle return of information in an easily digestible
  output.
• Use exit codes to determine status. Chocolatey exits with 0 when
  everything worked appropriately and other exits codes like 1 when
  things error. There are package specific exit codes that are
  recommended to be used and reboot indicating exit codes as well. To
  check exit code when using PowerShell, immediately call
  $exitCode = $LASTEXITCODE to get the value choco exited with.

Here’s an example following bad practices (line breaks added for
readability):

choco install pkg1 -y -params '/Option:Value /Option2:value with spaces' --c4b-option 'Yaass' --option-that-is-new 'dude upgrade'

Now here is that example written with best practices (again line
breaks added for readability – there are not line continuations
for choco):

choco upgrade pkg1 -y --source="'https://community.chocolatey.org/api/v2'" --package-parameters="'/Option:Value /Option2:value with spaces'" --c4b-option="'Yaass'" --option-that-is-new="'dude upgrade'"

Note the differences between the two:

• Which is more self-documenting?
• Which will allow for the newest version of something installed or
  upgraded to (which allows for more environmental consistency on
  packages and versions)?
• Which may throw an error on a badly passed option?
• Which will throw errors on unknown option values? See explanation
  below.

Chocolatey ignores options it doesn’t understand, but it can only
ignore option values if they are tied to the option with an
equals sign (‘=’). Note those last two options in the examples above?
If you roll off of a commercial edition or someone with older version
attempts to run the badly crafted script --c4b-option 'Yaass' --option-that-is-new 'dude upgrade', they are likely to see errors on
‘Yaass’ and ‘dude upgrade’ because they are not explicitly tied to the
option they are written after. Now compare that to the other script.
Choco will ignore --c4b-option="'Yaass'" and
--option-that-is-new="'dude upgrade'" as a whole when it doesn’t
register the options. This means that your script doesn’t error.

Following these scripting best practices will ensure your scripts work
everywhere they are used and with newer versions of Chocolatey.

Default Options and Switches

-?, –help, -h
Prints out the help menu.

-d, –debug
Debug – Show debug messaging.

-v, –verbose
Verbose – Show verbose messaging. Very verbose messaging, avoid using
under normal circumstances.

–trace
Trace – Show trace messaging. Very, very verbose trace messaging. Avoid
except when needing super low-level .NET Framework debugging. Available
in 0.10.4+.

–nocolor, –no-color
No Color – Do not show colorization in logging output. This overrides
the feature ‘logWithoutColor’, set to ‘False’. Available in 0.10.9+.

–acceptlicense, –accept-license
AcceptLicense – Accept license dialogs automatically. Reserved for
future use.

-y, –yes, –confirm
Confirm all prompts – Chooses affirmative answer instead of prompting.
Implies –accept-license

-f, –force
Force – force the behavior. Do not use force during normal operation –
it subverts some of the smart behavior for commands.

–noop, –whatif, –what-if
NoOp / WhatIf – Don’t actually do anything.

-r, –limitoutput, –limit-output
LimitOutput – Limit the output to essential information

–timeout, –execution-timeout=VALUE
CommandExecutionTimeout (in seconds) – The time to allow a command to
finish before timing out. Overrides the default execution timeout in the
configuration of 2700 seconds. ‘0’ for infinite starting in 0.10.4.

-c, –cache, –cachelocation, –cache-location=VALUE
CacheLocation – Location for download cache, defaults to %TEMP% or value
in chocolatey.config file.

–allowunofficial, –allow-unofficial, –allowunofficialbuild, –allow-unofficial-build
AllowUnofficialBuild – When not using the official build you must set
this flag for choco to continue.

–failstderr, –failonstderr, –fail-on-stderr, –fail-on-standard-error, –fail-on-error-output
FailOnStandardError – Fail on standard error output (stderr), typically
received when running external commands during install providers. This
overrides the feature failOnStandardError.

–use-system-powershell
UseSystemPowerShell – Execute PowerShell using an external process
instead of the built-in PowerShell host. Should only be used when
internal host is failing. Available in 0.9.10+.

–no-progress
Do Not Show Progress – Do not show download progress percentages.
Available in 0.10.4+.

–proxy=VALUE
Proxy Location – Explicit proxy location. Overrides the default proxy
location of ”. Available for config settings in 0.9.9.9+, this CLI
option available in 0.10.4+.

–proxy-user=VALUE
Proxy User Name – Explicit proxy user (optional). Requires explicit
proxy (--proxy or config setting). Overrides the default proxy user of
”. Available for config settings in 0.9.9.9+, this CLI option available
in 0.10.4+.

–proxy-password=VALUE
Proxy Password – Explicit proxy password (optional) to be used with
username. Requires explicit proxy (--proxy or config setting) and user
name. Overrides the default proxy password (encrypted in settings if
set). Available for config settings in 0.9.9.9+, this CLI option
available in 0.10.4+.

–proxy-bypass-list=VALUE
ProxyBypassList – Comma separated list of regex locations to bypass on
proxy. Requires explicit proxy (--proxy or config setting). Overrides
the default proxy bypass list of ”. Available in 0.10.4+.

–proxy-bypass-on-local
Proxy Bypass On Local – Bypass proxy for local connections. Requires
explicit proxy (--proxy or config setting). Overrides the default
proxy bypass on local setting of ‘True’. Available in 0.10.4+.

–log-file=VALUE
Log File to output to in addition to regular loggers. Available in 0.1-
0.8+.

–skipcompatibilitychecks, –skip-compatibility-checks
SkipCompatibilityChecks – Prevent warnings being shown before and after
command execution when a runtime compatibility problem is found between
the version of Chocolatey and the Chocolatey Licensed Extension.
Available in 1.1.0+

Chocolatey v1.1.0
PS C:\Users\user>

PS > $env:Path -split ‘;’
C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\jdk-11.0.12.7-hotspot\bin
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common
C:\Program Files\Git\cmd
C:\Program Files\dotnet\
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\150\Tools\Binn\
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\170\Tools\Binn\
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\150\DTS\Binn\
C:\Program Files\Azure Data Studio\bin
C:\PROGRA~1\JPKI
D:\Program Files\nodejs\
C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\
C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code Insiders\bin
C:\Users\user.dotnet\tools
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm

PS > Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString(‘https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1‘))

Forcing web requests to allow TLS v1.2 (Required for requests to Chocolatey.org)

Getting latest version of the Chocolatey package for download.

Not using proxy.

Getting Chocolatey from https://community.chocolatey.org/api/v2/package/chocolatey/1.1.0.

Downloading https://community.chocolatey.org/api/v2/package/chocolatey/1.1.0 to C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\chocoInstall\chocolatey.zip

Not using proxy.

Extracting C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\chocoInstall\chocolatey.zip to C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\chocoInstall

Installing Chocolatey on the local machine

Creating ChocolateyInstall as an environment variable (targeting ‘Machine’)

  Setting ChocolateyInstall to ‘C:\ProgramData\chocolatey’

WARNING: It’s very likely you will need to close and reopen your shell  before you can use choco.

WARNING: Not able to set permissions for C:\ProgramData\chocolatey.

We are setting up the Chocolatey package repository.

The packages themselves go to ‘C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib’

  (i.e. C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\yourPackageName).

A shim file for the command line goes to ‘C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin’

  and points to an executable in ‘C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\yourPackageName’.

Creating Chocolatey folders if they do not already exist.

WARNING: You can safely ignore errors related to missing log files when

  upgrading from a version of Chocolatey less than 0.9.9.

  ‘Batch file could not be found’ is also safe to ignore.

  ‘The system cannot find the file specified’ – also safe.

chocolatey.nupkg file not installed in lib.

Attempting to locate it from bootstrapper.

PATH environment variable does not have C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin in it. Adding…

WARNING: Not setting tab completion: Profile file does not exist at ‘C:\Users\user\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1’.

Chocolatey (choco.exe) is now ready.

You can call choco from anywhere, command line or powershell by typing choco.

Run choco /? for a list of functions.

You may need to shut down and restart powershell and/or consoles

first prior to using choco.

Ensuring Chocolatey commands are on the path

Ensuring chocolatey.nupkg is in the lib folder

PS >