Microsoft Releases WinGet 1.4 For Improving Its Open-Source Package Manager

It's easy to forget that Microsoft maintains a command-line package manager for Windows... The open-source WinGet package manager is approaching three years since its announcement while it continues to not be as rich and robust of what Linux users for many years have enjoyed, but in any case it's continuing to be improved.

WinGet 1.4 was released today as the newest feature release for the Windows Package Manager. The shiny new feature with this version? Supporting .zip based packages... WinGet now supports extracting and running installers found within Zip archives. Of course, Linux package managers have long supported compressed assets, including for some higher compression alternatives like Zstd.

Microsoft screenshot of WinGet 1.4.

WinGet 1.4 also adds command aliases to help overcome muscle memory, particularly from Linux users/administrators. There are also improvements to the winget show sub-command, support for a "--no-upgrade" argument with WinGet package install, other install/upgrade flow enhancements, and support for a "--wait" argument.

Those interested in Microsoft's Windows Package Manager can read more about the WinGet 1.4 release via the Microsoft Command Line blog.