psChocoUpdateNotify

Searches for chocolatey package updates and notifies the user about it. Includes a GUI where you can choose what to update

• Features
• Install
  • As a powershell module
  • Manual
  • Other
• Update
  • As a powershell module
  • Manual
• Usage
  • First Start
  • Settings
  • Parameters
• Credits/Acknowledgements

Features

• Get notified about outdated chocolatey packages through a windows toast notification on every logon
  
• List all outdated packages in a simple graphical interface
  
• Install all or a subset of your outdated packages with three different options
  • Silent: Don't ask for confirmation when updating chocolatey packages (Choco parameter -y)
  • Hidden: Don't show the chocolatey window
  • WhatIf: Don't make any changes. This is just for testing purposes
• Show detailed information about a package when double-clicking it.
  

Install

The first mentioned method is the preferred method.
The last mentioned method is the least preferred method.

You might want to have a look at first start after the installation

As a powershell module

Simply run Install-Module -Name psChocoUpdateNotify -Scope AllUsers and then start the script with Start-PSChocoUpdateNotify in any powershell session.

Manual

1. Open the Releases-Page and download the latest ZIP-File.
2. Extract the ZIP-File to a destination of your choice.
3. Open the extracted folder, right-click the file psChocoUpdate-Notify.ps1 and choose Run with powershell

Other

If you know what you're doing you can Download the latest source code and start it the same way as described in the manual method.

Update

As a powershell module

This is as simple as running Update-Module psChocoUpdateNotify.

You might need to reopen your powershell session or unload the old module with Remove-Module psChocoUpdateNotify in order to have powershell use the new module.

Manual

1. Open the Releases-Page and download the latest ZIP-File.
2. Extract the ZIP-File to a destination of your choice.
   1. You can use the same folder and just replace the old files to skip the first start-questions, except something fundamental changed), but you can just use another folder.
3. Open the extracted folder, right-click the file psChocoUpdate-Notify.ps1 and choose Run with powershell

Usage

The usage is mostly self explanatory, so I will only mention the non-self-explanatory points.
If you feel like something was not mentioned or is unclear, please create an issue.

First Start

Be sure to set your ExecutionPolicy accordingly or this script might not start.

You will get a notification window on your first start, which will warn you that some basic things are not setup yet or have been changed (maybe due to an update).

If you click Yes here, you might get asked for elevated permissions in order to update values in the registry (see below) and create a scheduled task.

These "basic things" includes:

• The presence of two protocol handlers.
  • They are needed when you click on Update or GUI in the notification window and are currently the only (?) way to execute code when you click on a button in a notification window created with the BurntToast-Module.
  • You can choose to disable this notification window and don't install the protocol handlers, but clicking the buttons Update or GUI in this Notification won't work at all or not the way you expect it to work.
  • The protocol handlers are located in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\psChocoUpdateNotifyUpdate and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\psChocoUpdateNotifyGUI. Feel free to inspect them.
  • You are able to call the code behind the protocol handlers not only from this Notification but also if you type psChocoUpdateNotifyUpdate: or psChocoUpdateNotifyGUI: in the Windows-Run-Dialog (WIN + R). This is exactly the same as if you click on Update or GUI.
• A scheduled task which runs on every logon
  • This assures that you get notified regularly.
  • The scheduled task is located in the folder psChocoUpdateNotify in Windows Scheduled Task-Management Console.

Settings

Currently most of the settings can only be modified manually and not from within the GUI.

These are the settings you can change:

Section	Name	Description	Default
choco_options	silent	Does not ask for confirmation when updating choco packages (-y-parameter for choco.exe). Can be True or False. Last state of checkbox is saved	False
choco_options	hidden	Hides the chocolatey window, automatically enables the silent-option. Can be True or False. Last state of checkbox is saved	False
choco_options	whatif	Does not make any changes, this is mainly for testing purposes. Can be True or False. Last state of checkbox is saved	False
general	IgnoreStartUpChecks	Disable the presence-check of the two protocol handlers and the scheduled task. Can be True or False	False
updater	checkVersionOnStartup	Checks if a new version is available on every startup. Can be True or False	True
updater	proxy	Sets a proxy for the update check. Must be a valid proxy-string like http://myproxy.example.com:3128	None
updater	proxyUserName	Sets a username for the proxy. Can be any string	None
updater	proxyPassword	Sets a password for the proxy. Can be any string	None
updater	timeout	Sets a timeout in seconds for the update-check	5

Parameters

You can alter the startup-behaviour with these parameters:

Parameter-Name	Description	Default
Mode	Can be Notification or GUI Forces the script to start either the Notification or the GUI	Notification
IgnoreStartupChecks	Specify to disable the presence-check of the two protocol handlers and the scheduled task	False
SkipGUIInitialSearch	Skipping the automatic search for update when the GUI starts. Click the button Search outdated packages to get a list of outdated packages	False
SettingsFile	Path to the json-settings file	%APPDATA%\psChocoUpdateNotify\settings.json

Credits/Acknowledgements

The 'hot chocolate' logo in the main window, in the notification-window and in the taskbar was designed by kerismaker and can be found here.

The following 3rd party components are used in this project

• MdXaml; Released under the MIT-License; Used for rendering Markdown-Text
• AvalonEdit; Released under the MIT-License; Used as a dependency for MdXaml