All Packages in Programs and Features

In C4B, you can flip a switch and see all packages in Programs and Features, even those packages that don’t have underlying native installers! This makes reporting back to legacy inventory reporting systems a snap.

Usage

Requirements

• Chocolatey (chocolatey package) v0.10.7+.
• Chocolatey for Business (C4B) Edition.
• Chocolatey Licensed Extension (chocolatey.extension package) v1.10.0+.

Setup

• choco feature enable --name showAllPackagesInProgramsAndFeatures

Options and Switches

Global Feature Setting:

• showAllPackagesInProgramsAndFeatures - Package Synchronizer’s Packages In Programs And Features Synchronization - Show all packages in Programs and Features, not just packages that use a native installer.

FAQ

How do I take advantage of this feature?

You must have the business edition of Chocolatey. Business editions are great for organizations that need to manage the total software management lifecycle.

I’m a business customer, now what?

Once you set the feature, it just works automatically.

How does it work?

Chocolatey tracks packages that manage natively installed software. For packages that are zip archives or configuration, Chocolatey will add an entry into Programs and Features based on the nuspec. It’s smart enough not to add an entry for a meta-package - say notepadplusplus and notepadplusplus.install are installed. The meta-package would be notepadpluplus.

Packages in Programs and Features Known Issues

• MSU type packages will show up - Chocolatey doesn’t automatically track Windows Updates types of installers. So if you install WMF 5 through Chocolatey and turn this feature on, it will show up as well.
• You must run choco at least one more time after setting the feature for it to take effect. So flip the feature and then run choco -v.