Windows Package Manager is an open-source tool designed by Microsoft for downloading and installing software on Windows computers. It is available in form of an app bundle and can be easily installed on any Windows 10 computer. After the installation, it is available from the command line interface through WinGet.exe commands. Since it is a command line interface (CLI) application, some Windows users find it a bit difficult to use.
People who do not want to use the Windows Package Manager because of its command line interface, can now use a GUI front-end called HandyWinGet. It offers all the features from WinGet but through a very well designed, easy-to-use, user interface.
Before you can start using HandyWinGet to download and install software on your PC, you should get the .appxbundle file for WinGet-CLI from https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/releases and install it on your PC. This is needed for HandyWinGet to download the software packages.
Once you have installed/updated WinGet-CLI, you are ready to se HandyWinGet. In its user interface, you will be able to search for any software that it supports. There are hundreds of software packages such as WinRAR, 7-Zip and Win32DiskImager available.
In order to install these packages, you can select them and click on the Install Selected button. The packages will be downloaded and then installed automatically in next few seconds. You will be shown the entire progress in the HandyWinGet window.
HandyWinGet allows the installation done in two ways – one is obviously through WinGet CLI. In that case, you can also right-click on the packages and copy the installation command or PowerShell script to the clipboard and then manually run it yourself. But if you cannot get WinGet CLI to work on your system, then it also offers an internal method of installation.
HandyWinGet is a little complicated software to use compared to other similar software managers like Chocolatey. But it comes with almost 900 different software packages that can be quickly installed through it.
You can download HandyWinGet from https://github.com/HandyOrg/HandyWinGet.