Ninichoco

Chocolatey: Windows Package Manager for IT Admins

Chocolatey is a community-driven package manager for Windows with over 10,000 packages in its public repository. It predates WinGet and remains widely used in enterprise environments — particularly for software not yet available in WinGet's catalog. Ninichoco supports both Chocolatey and WinGet, and can generate a Chocolatey install script or a packages.config file for bulk installation.

What is Chocolatey?

Chocolatey installs software from NuGet-based package feeds. The public Chocolatey Community Repository hosts open-source and freeware packages. Chocolatey must be installed before use — run the following in PowerShell as Administrator:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072
iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

How choco install works

choco install <packagename>

Key flags for silent deployment:

  • -y — auto-confirm all prompts
  • --no-progress — suppress download progress output (cleaner logs)

Example:

choco install googlechrome -y --no-progress

Bulk installs with packages.config

Chocolatey supports a packages.config XML file for installing multiple packages in one command. Ninichoco generates this file as a download option alongside the PowerShell script:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<packages>
  <package id="googlechrome" />
  <package id="vscode" />
  <package id="7zip" />
</packages>

Install all packages in the file:

choco install packages.config -y

Chocolatey for Business vs. open-source

The free open-source edition covers most use cases. Chocolatey for Business (C4B) adds capabilities for regulated or air-gap environments:

  • Package internalization: rehost packages on your own feed for environments without internet access
  • Package Builder/Internalizer: automate package creation from existing installers
  • Runtime Malware Protection: scan packages at install time
  • Audit logging: track what was installed, when, and by whom

How Ninichoco uses Chocolatey

Every Chocolatey package ID in the Ninichoco catalog is manually curated and verified against the Chocolatey Community Repository. The generated PowerShell script calls:

choco install <packageid> -y --no-progress

...for each selected app. You can also download a packages.config file from the Review page to use directly with Chocolatey.

Browse apps and generate a Chocolatey script

Also supports WinGet. Learn about the generated PowerShell script.