The ULTIMATE Chocolatey and Chocolatey packages (re)installer!

InstChoco is the evolution of an old batch file I’ve used over the years to automate installing Chocolatey followed by a bunch of "choco install packagename -y" commands to install my standard toolset of programs. In 2017 I turned that old batch file into a program with many additional features. Thus, InstChoco was born. I also integrated InstChoco with other Chocolatey packages I've created. InstChoco is especially useful when used along with Choco Package List Backup to Local and Cloud. What you see now is the culmination of many long hard hours of work making InstChoco the ULTIMATE Chocolatey and Chocolatey packages (re)installer! InstChoco is extremely feature rich, but I'm always open to new ideas and features. Feel free to contact me with feedback or suggestions.

FEATURES:

* InstChoco uses ferventcoder/Rob's "Install with cmd.exe" method for installing Chocolatey.

* InstChoco can install Chocolatey v0.10.11 offline. No Internet required.

* InstChoco will enable up to four choco features if you pass them as parameters,

i.e. allowGlobalConfirmation, failOnAutoUninstaller, allowEmptyChecksums, useRememberedArgumentsForUpgrades, etc.

* InstChoco can download a PACKAGES.CONFIG file from the Internet and install packages from that downloaded file.

* InstChoco will automatically search for a PACKAGES.CONFIG file in various locations on your computer and install

packages from it if found.

* InstChoco has baked in support for Choco Package List Backup to Local and Cloud. InstChoco will use the first found

PACKAGES.CONFIG in the following order: current directory, Documents folder, HOMESHARE, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive,

iCloudDrive, OneDrive, ReadyCLOUD, Nextcloud, Resilio Sync, Seafile, or Tonido Sync.

* InstChoco has baked in support for Choco Persistent Packages. InstChoco will use PERSISTANTPACKAGES.CONFIG and

install packages from it if found.

* InstChoco has a baked in mini version of Choco Package List Backup to Local and Cloud to backup a list of your

installed Chocolatey packages.

* InstChoco has baked in support for Windows Active Directory domains. InstChoco will use various PACKAGES.CONFIG

files based on domain and user account to install packages from them if found. Now you can easily standardize

your organization with base Chocolatey package installs.

SPECIAL FEATURES FOR WINDOWS ACTIVE DIRECTORY DOMAINS:

* InstChoco will use DOMAINNAMEPACKAGES.CONFIG and install packages from it if found. This allows Windows AD domain

joined computers to have a commonly installed base setup of Chocolatey packages across all organizational computers.

To use this feature, system administrators of Windows AD domains need to create a DOMAINNAMEPACKAGES.CONFIG

file and put it in your logon server's NETLOGON directory;

i.e. \\LOGONSERVER\NETLOGON\DOMAINNAMEPACKAGES.CONFIG

* InstChoco will use USERNAMEPACKAGES.CONFIG and install packages from it if found. This allows users of Windows AD

domain joined computers to have their own specific Chocolatey packages installed for them, useful for first time

setup and roaming users. To use this feature, system administrators or users in Windows AD domains need to create

a USERNAMEPACKAGES.CONFIG file and put it in the root of the user's HOMESHARE;

i.e. \\LOGONSERVER\HOMESHARE\USERNAMEPACKAGES.CONFIG

SCREENSHOT OF INSTCHOCO IN USE

SCREENSHOT OF INSTCHOCO FEATURES

SCREENSHOT OF INSTCHOCO OPTIONS AND SWITCHES

Want to install the Chocolatey package manager program for Windows?

The official way to install Chocolatey via the Command Prompt is:

@”%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe” -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command “iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString(‘https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1’))” && SET “PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin”

The official way to install Chocolatey via PowerShell is:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

Want an EASY way to install the Chocolatey package manager program for Windows? Get InstChoco!

If you already have Chocolatey installed,

· you can run choco install instchoco to install InstChoco

· or click choco:/instchoco if you have choco protocol support installed.

If you don’t have Chocolatey installed you can download InstChoco from the official source below:

Alternative download locations (not always up to date) include GitHub, CNET's Download.com, nuget.org, and SOFTPEDIA.

MISC:

My other original 3^rd party Chocolatey packages.

My Chocolatey Patreon page and blog.

VERSION HISTORY:

2.11 - -offline now installs Chocolatey v0.10.15, online install bug fix

2.10 - Added -offline Chocolatey install option.

2.02 - Removed legacy date checking and connectivity checking which only worked in English environments.

2.01 - Fixed bug with non-domain joined computers.

2.00 - Added -browse, -popular, -backup, -backupwithversions, -license options as well as many cosmetic changes. Added iCloudDrive support. Commercial use of InstChoco v2+ requires a paid license.

1.30 - Added ability to download a packages.config file from the web and install packages from it.

1.21 - Added Box, Nextcloud, and Seafile support to catch up with choco-package-list-backup.

1.20 - Added domain support to install predefined packages for domain joined computers and user specific packages.

1.11 - (unreleased) Added -ynp switch to skip installation of packages. (Install Chocolatey only)

1.10 - Added Choco Package List Backup to Local and Cloud and Choco Persistent Packages support for package (re)installation. Cosmetic changes. Checks for year 2018 or greater instead of 2017 or greater. Updated donation info. :)

1.00 - Initial release.

VERSION CHECKSUMS:

v2.11 sha256: 31073329439F4526F7C210D5D185FDAB57DB6C1D4A689AFAC897545758144196

v2.10 sha256: C3021264215BBE9FC43148F3249D9D96F8E406800A7844189E96D6F526DD09E5

v2.02 sha256: 811FBE3BD37F40A4253B2D54DD940C9B67F321B94240FC82E63DA37728097E46

v2.01 sha256: 3E89A851FB69070D09D80CF409C45612CE7678221ADE6AA248844C599D347256

v2.00 sha256: 87AC9E9E30193268058476E72DDA9593E4FDB795AC76029B70A5217FB63A436E

v1.30 sha256: D9B593CF4EBC390360DE1BA801103D0A3208F1602C2B10072500D80E09FF74DE

v1.21 sha256: 59498D9BB5AECB5EFE022F544D3537C5C3886C4478B1711FFDE2666AF0F83D75

v1.20 sha256: C41F13CDDA1B147F3B41E5C9F9FE4B9A5BFA8C9AFD722A23DF579D485F241354

v1.10 sha256: 4FD57C57A7F7BEC7891AD8CB8D645126336965F7151EB0B514E8A6F49DDF4076

v1.00 sha256: 99366BD182946F7AAAF0070244F8F96CC160274E85892F5AD3D54F658444908B

LICENSE INFORMATION:

Commercial use of InstChoco requires a paid license. A limited 5 day non-production evaluation is permitted.

Organizations who purchase an InstChoco license will receive a customized version of InstChoco with

their organization's name embedded in the program and without corporate nag screens.

To inquire about purchasing a license, please contact Bill Curran here.

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InstChoco uses the following freely distributable licensed software for Chocolatey offline installation:

7-Zip

License information: https://www.7-zip.org/license.txt

Chocolatey

License information: https://github.com/chocolatey/choco/blob/master/LICENSE