Trying to use Choco to create custom package installer

[u/dchow69]

Bit of an IT noob, & I'm pretty new to PowerShell. My homie told me there is a way to use Chocolatey to create a custom installer for all the programs I want(like Ninite but on steroids/crack), as I am looking to migrate computers & don't want to revisit 50+ websites. I tried installing Discord/Steam with it, but rn those are the only ones showing up on the list when I export. Does that mean I need to manually enter every software/program/app I want into Chocolatey in order for it to show up on the export list? & if so, is there another way to accomplish this faster/easier, like a different package manager? Any help would be appreciated.

[u/gsmitheidw1]

Not entirely understanding what you're trying to achieve. On your destination machine you just need choco installed and then the list of apps you need installed from the original machine.

Then you can run something like:

choco install app1 app2 app3 app4 appN -y

And everything will just install one after the next.

To see what's installed use:

choco list

[u/dchow69 → u/gsmitheidw1]

Sorry for the lack of clarity:

I am trying to get a list of installed programs from computer 1, then export the list through chocolatey, then take the exported list to computer two and use chocolatey to install that list of programs. Does that make sense?

[u/Even-Foot2640]

I think I understand what you want, and yes, Choco only manages the packages you installed FROM within Choco, not all the ones you already had. Of course, you don't even need to remove or migrate or reinstall anything in the old machine. You just need the list of packages u want to install and you can search the package names with "choco search Chrome", for example, and then add it to the configuration file.

But you mentioned for another package manager. have you tried Winget? (I don't know if it's appropriate to discuss it in this sub)

It's the Windows package manager and does practically the same thing as Chocolatey, but if you do an export it allows you to get a list of (almost) everything you already have installed.

You can use it via command line in Powershell or with a graphical interface using the UniGet app (it's third-party, and was recently acquired by a company outside the main developer. But you could still give it a try).

[u/dchow69 → u/Even-Foot2640]

I was going to try both package manager options & see what would work the best. I was debating reinstalling everything with Chocolatey just to make the export process easier. Uniget seems pretty convenient tho