WHAT’ S HOT ON WPM
The WPM library is extensive and growing – have a quick browse and you’re almost certain to find something you want to download. To whet your appetite, here’s some of our favourite items that are available for instant installation:
CLOUD STORAGE
Client apps for several popular cloud services can be directly installed via WPM. The installation ID for the Dropbox client is particularly easy to remember – it’s Dropbox.Dropbox – while Google users can install either Google.BackupAndSync or Google.DriveFileStream, depending on whether you’re signed up with the domestic service or the corporate-friendly G Suite. There’s even a Microsoft.OneDrive package, for those who have somehow managed to avoid it thus far.
VIDEO TOOLS
The VLC media player is feted for its ability to play almost any video file, so it’s a great thing to have on your system: type winget install videolan.vlc to get the latest version. If you still need to convert your movie files, you can also install the free Handbrake converter, which has the slightly cumbersome ID of TheHandbrakeTeam.Handbrake.
You can even set up the Plex video-streaming platform directly from the command line. Simply install Plex.PlexMediaServer to make your video library available over the web, or access it via the dedicated app – which you can deploy instantly with winget install Plex.PlexmediaPlayer.
HANDY TOOLS AND UTILITIES
Need to quickly open a few Office files? You can use WPM to download the latest full release of LibreOffice (its ID is LibreOffice.
LibreOffice). The 7-Zip tool, meanwhile, makes short work of compressed files ( winget install 7zip.7zip), while Notepad++ builds on the standard Windows notepad app with all sorts of useful editing capabilities ( Notepad++.Notepad++).
Other useful utilities include WinDirStat
– which shows you exactly where all your precious disk space has gone – the TGRMNSoftware. BulkRenameUtility tool and the Microsoft. PowerToys collection.
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
It’s annoying when an application demands that you hunt down and install a certain add-on before it will install or run. WPM can be very helpful here, providing a painless way to install Java ( Oracle.JavaRuntimeEnvironment), along with numerous versions of Microsoft’s .NET and Visual C++ redistributable frameworks. For developers, there’s also a whole collection of components for Azure and Visual Studio, AWS tools, servers including MariaDB PostgreSQL and even entire Debian and Ubuntu distributions for use with Windows’ built-in Linux services.
To keep your drivers and support apps up to date, there are manufacturer-specific packages such as Intel.IntelDriverAndSupportAssistant and Nvidia.GeForceExperience – which should save you some annoying website rummaging.