What you need to know
- After a brief preview period, Winstall is now out of preview.
- Winstall allows you to browse Windows Package Manager apps and create installation commands.
- Winstall gained several new features, including the ability to share app pages and the option to install different versions of an app.
Winstall is a handy tool that allows you to browse Windows Package Manager apps and create batch-installation commands. It's a web app that quickly appeared after Microsoft announced Windows Package Manager in preview. Now, after a brief preview period of its own, Winstall is out of preview and ready for general use. Winstall's developer, Mehedi Hassan, shared its availability on Twitter.
In addition to coming out of preview, Winstall gained several new features that make it easier to find and install apps. Here's the complete changelog:
- You can now view apps without having to individually load them.
- Apps now display icons where possible.
- You can now share an app directly (https://winstall.app/apps/Microsoft.VisualStudioCode)
- Search now lets you search by app name, publisher, tags, or description.
- Bonus! You can add a search prefix to target a specific field. Try it out: add "publisher:" before the search query to search for apps by a specific publisher.
- The homepage now shows a list of recently updated apps.
- You can now select different versions of an app to install, and even download the installer for the different versions.
- You can now sort apps by name or last update time on the all apps page.
- Navigating between different parts of the app is significantly improved, and is almost instantaneous.
Winstall is powered by Windows Package Manager, also known as "winget." Winstall uses an API to check Microsoft's official repository for Windows Package Manager apps.
To use Winstall, you can go to its GitHub page, which breaks down how to install and use it and hit up the main repository here.
