Those of you who have had a bite of the delicious Linux cookie know how easy it is to install a new program in Linux. Almost all the flavors of Linux come with one or another command line interface like yum pr apt-get. Using these CLI tools in Linux you can quickly install or update software packages without having to go through all the tedious steps usually involved in the GUI setup installers. Now you can enjoy the same flexibility, ease and comfort in Windows through the user of the Just Install, a simple package installer for Windows.
The beauty of the Just Install is that it is completely and fully stand alone software and does not depend on any frameworks like .NET or Power Shell. It can be installed on any Windows operating system starting from Windows XP to Windows 10 using its MSI setup installer.
Once installed on your system, you have to open an elevated command line window. You can open an elevated command prompt in Windows 8.x/10 by pressing Win+X and selecting Command Prompt (Admin) from the menu. In order to see the available packages, you have to give the command just-install list.
There are many popular open-source software packages are available through Just Install. If you want to install one of these packages, then type just-install followed by a space and the package name. For example, if you want to install 7-Zip, then you can give the command just-install 7zip. It will automatically pick the x86 or x64 versions of the software suitable for your system.
However, if you want to install 32-bit version of a software, then you can make it forcibly install the desired software architecture using the -a switch followed by x86 or x86_64. For example, if you have 64-bit of Windows system and want to install 32-bit version of Firefox in it, then give the command just-install -a x86 firefox.
The Just Install package installer is not limited to just installing the software packages, it can also forcibly reinstall them or update them to the latest versions. In order to update all the software to latest version, you can use the command line just-install update.
Just Install is great for automatically downloading and installing the essential software packages on computers after you have freshly installed Windows on them. You can install “Just Install” and then run a batch script to automatically install a number of software packages for you. For example, this batch script can install 7-Zip, Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC Media Player, Steam, Skype and Google Chrome:
msiexec.exe /i http://go.just-install.it just-install 7zip just-install firefox just-install thunderbird just-install vlc just-install steam just-install skype just-install google-chrome
Conclusion: If you want to speed up installation of some of the most popular open-source software on your Windows PC, then Just Install software package installer can do it for you. Just Install does for Windows what apt-get or yum does for Linux. It can download, install and update dozens of software packages in Windows through the command line interface.
You can download Just Install for Windows from https://github.com/lvillani/just-install.