Publish WinGet as an MSIX with dependencies included

[felipecrs]

Description of the new feature/enhancement

Publish the WinGet installer as an MSIX with the dependencies included, just like Windows Terminal.

Motivation

Currently, the WinGet .appxbundle has two required dependencies from VCLibs. This prevents people to install in environments where there is no Microsoft Store available, such as the Windows Sandbox. This would help microsoft/winget-pkgs#827.

Proposed technical implementation details

Follow the same approach of Windows Terminal, tracked on microsoft/terminal#3097 and microsoft/terminal#5661.

This can also help -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/desktop/desktop-to-uwp-packaging-dot-net

[driver1998]

I guess the better way would be asking MS to release those dependency package outside the store, in a support document or something.

They provide direct appx downloads for WSL distros in WSL docs after all.

[grzegor]

[...] release those dependency package outside the store

They're available to download from the Microsoft docs site over here.

[felipecrs]

Not all of the needed deps seems to be there, as per my comments in the TestSandbox PR

[grzegor]

Oh, right - just read about VCLibs in your original post. I didn't realize there's also a separate VCLibsUWP package.

[denelon]

@felipecrs we're not likely to pull the dependencies into WinGet and include them in our bundle. We've created the Repair-WinGetPackageManger cmdlet in the Microsoft.WinGet.Client powershell module to make it easier to bootstrap/upgrade WinGet when the Microsoft Store isn't available. We've also added the App Installer (with "winget" moniker) to the community repository along with the dependencies.

I've also got a sample WinGet configuration over at https://aka.ms/dsc.yaml for launching the Windows Sandbox and bootstrapping WinGet inside the sandbox.

Note: I've refactored it to match our guidance over at Microsoft Learn rather than using the Repair-WinGetPackageManager and that PR hasn't been merged as of today.

[felipecrs]

@denelon Alright. I honestly don't care about this anymore. And I have not given Repair-WinGetPackageManager a try yet.

Please close the issue if you feel there's nothing else to be done.

[akbyrd]

@denelon Are there instructions available for bootstrapping winget from a terminal in an environment like Windows Sandbox? Packaging a program into a single file with all it's dependencies is a standard software practice. Currently with winget I have to jump through hoops to manually download and install dependencies from a script and that fails every time the dependency set changes.

function Install-WinGet
{
	# Using github instead of the store since it's not guaranteed to be installed (Windows Sandbox,
	# corporate environments, etc).
	# https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/#install-winget-on-windows-sandbox

	# We have to manually grab dependencies. This is fragile and will hopefully be fixed one day.
	# https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/issues/401
	$wingetUrls = @(
		"https://aka.ms/Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx",
		"https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/releases/download/v2.8.6/Microsoft.UI.Xaml.2.8.x64.appx",
		"https://aka.ms/getwinget"
	)

	# Disable progress because it slows downloads to a crawl
	$progressPreference = "silentlyContinue"
	$tempDir = "dotfiles-temp"
	Write-Information "Downloading WinGet and its dependencies..."
	New-Item $tempDir -ItemType Directory -Force | Out-Null
	for ($i = 0; $i -lt $wingetUrls.Length; $i++)
	{
		$url = $wingetUrls[$i]
		$filename = "$tempDir\WingetFile_$i.msixbundle";

		Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -OutFile $filename
		Add-AppxPackage $filename
		Remove-Item $filename
	}
	Remove-Item $tempDir
	$progressPreference = "Continue"
}

[felipecrs]

At this point, I think there's no good reason for Windows Sandbox not to come with WinGet preinstalled btw. 😄

[Trenly]

@denelon Are there instructions available for bootstrapping winget from a terminal in an environment like Windows Sandbox? Packaging a program into a single file with all it's dependencies is a standard software practice. Currently with winget I have to jump through hoops to manually download and install dependencies from a script and that fails every time the dependency set changes.

This is what I use inside a PowerShell script

Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force
Install-Module -Name Microsoft.WinGet.Client -Force -Repository PSGallery
Repair-WinGetPackageManager

[denelon]

At this point, I think there's no good reason for Windows Sandbox not to come with WinGet preinstalled btw. 😄

I'm working with the Windows Sandbox team on doing this 😊

[denelon]

@akbyrd: https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/package-manager/winget/#install-winget-on-windows-sandbox