Winget: One command to update them all

Okay, so we have to talk about the winget upgrade --all command… This is the most useful little thing in the Windows command line that I discovered in a long time.

With just approximately 27 key strokes, this brilliant little command does something that (1) would take me hours to do manually and (2) something I would probably never otherwise do because it would take me hours to do it.

We all (probably) know that an up-to-date Windows OS is a happy Windows OS is a safer Windows OS. But what about all of the apps that you have installed along the way? For best possible security, they also need to be up to date.

Up until now, for me to ensure that my applications were up to date would involve me opening each application individually, hitting the help menu and clicking check for updates. (Or something similar – not all apps put the update option there, so it invariably would involve digging around.)

Fair to say, that means I would generally never do this because it would take me like forever. So I’ve been doing the next best thing, which has been to always update apps when prompted to do so.

Of course, that means, most apps on my computers do not get very frequent updates as I don’t use everything all the time.

CMD winget to the rescue

So, what’s this incredibly wonderful alternative then, which is so great that I’m even resorting to cheesy Lord of the Ring references in the heading?

My friend, meet winget!

This golden little nugget will – in one fell swoop – update most of your applications to their latest versions in the space of approximately 27 keystrokes and three clicks of the mouse.

Here’s how to update almost all of your Windows apps in one go:

1. Click the Windows start button, type cmd and click the option to Run as administrator. This will open the Command Line tool in administrator mode.
2. Click Yes to allow CMD to make changes to your computer.
3. Type winget upgrade --all and hit enter. This will launch winget and start the update process.
4. Type Y and hit Enter when asked to accept terms and conditions.
5. Watch winget search for updates to almost all of your Windows apps and then install them in short order.

After a few seconds or minutes or hours (depending on how many apps were in desperate need of updating) your Windows computer will now be kitted out with all shiny, new applications and you’re ready to move on to bigger and better things knowing your computer is safer today than it was yesterday.

A few notes about using winget

1. Anytime anyone asks you to launch anything in administrator mode on your computer, be very sure about what you are doing. Don’t blindly follow such instructions, even if those instructions come from GoodGeeky. Do your own research about what you are about to do actually means for your computer. We recommend starting with this Microsoft Learn page.
2. One the update process gets underway, you will notice that the occasional updater window for various applications will show up to display the install process. Mostly, you will not need to do anything with these windows – they will simply pop up when the app starts updating and close down when the app has been updated. But sometimes, a post-update window might stay open and block or terminate the update process for the rest of the apps. If an update window requires input to either get started or finish up, do whatever clicks necessary to keep the process moving along. If the update process times out because an update window stayed open for too long, simply run the winget upgrade –all command again.
3. Why run CMD in administrator mode? Because that way, the above mentioned updates will move along smoothly without any input being required from you. If you do not run CMD in administrator mode, then you will need to allow each individual update package to make changes to your computer. That will be more time consuming and will require your ongoing involvement in the update process.