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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Linux, Freeware

Win-get is like apt-get for Windows, but less useful

Win-Get
Win-get isn't the first attempt we've heard about to replicate the Debian Linux package management experience on Windows. But unlike Ed Ropple's proposal, Win-get already works. Sort of.

If you're not familiar with package management, here's how it works. You type "apt-get install <name of program>" into a terminal and your operating system will find that program online, download it, and install it. Newer versions of Linux have graphical interfaces that basically let you browse through a huge list of mostly free and open source software that you can download. No need to search the web for a good image editor. Just open your package manager and download GIMP.

Win-get aims to work pretty much like apt-get, but for free Windows software. We're not talking open source here, necessarily. Many of the programs in the win-get repository are free to download and install, but the source code may not be available. There's a huge list of software available for download.
All you have to do is:
  1. Download wget.exe and Win-get.exe from the project homepage.
  2. Go to your start menu and type "cmd" to get a command prompt.
  3. Type "win-get install <name of program>" and win-get will go online, find your program and attempt to install it.
While we were able to download several programs easily using win-get, we couldn't get a single one to actually install. We're running Vista at the moment which may have something to do with it. But once you've download your installer files, it's not that hard to locate them using Windows Explorer and double-click the file to install.

Win-get is a work in progress, so hopefully a future release will run more smoothly. But we'd love to see a graphical, searchable interface at some point. Right now, win-get is only useful if you already know the software you want to install. And if you're already familiar with applications like AbiWord, 7-zip, and GIMPshop, you probably already know how to download and install them.

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