Posted in : Intune, Microsoft, Powershell, System Center, Windows By Sebastian Stegrin Translate with Google ⟶

2 years ago

In almost all IT environments administrators have to take care of third-party applications. In this article we will talk about how to make your life as an application administrator easier.

One example I’m still not used with is that I find many organizations installing Google Chrome. Why? Because their users have it at home and don’t accept to use anything else, like Microsoft Edge that use the same platform, except better integration with Microsoft services. So how do we handle installations and updates for these kind of applications? You can use a system like Microsoft Endpoint Manager and deploy each new version, that is after you have verified its integrity and tested it against the rest of your companies applications. This might happen on bigger companies, but the reality is not always like this on small/middle size companies. Unfortunately at some companies they don’t even update their applications.

Ok less talk, let’s get into action, how do we solve this issue?

There are several products that we can use to install and maintain applications for us.

  1. Ninite
    1. This is the one I find the most easy to use and manage. They do miss some features that I would like to use an a administrator. As example I can’t force MFA on my organization administrators. If you work as an consultant you have have to work in several customer environments, and therefore I would like to have a feature letting me login with the same account on different Ninite-portals. Even due to the points I just mentioned I still believe this is the easiest one to use. If you are a company make sure to use the Ninite Pro-version to fully use all their features.
  2. Chocolatey
    1. No this is not some kind of candy store, but here are some fun fact: Chocolatey started out as a joke because everyone loves Chocolatey nougat (nuget).

      Without going into details I would say that Chocolatey have the same features like Ninite, except that I believe that Ninite have a better GUI to administrate all clients. Now one thing that Chocolatey have that Ninite don’t is a package manager, with that meant you can pack your own applications.

  3. WinGet
    1. This is the product that I’m very excited to use. This is an application that Microsoft took over and developed as its own. With this you can create your own repositories and control your own applications but also get applications directly from the developer. In the future I will try to automate this via Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

These are just some examples that I’ve been in touch with. If you are looking for a software management tool I recommend you to visit each product and do some comparing on your own to find the one that suits your organization the best.

If you don’t have time or knowledge to manage your third-party applications Xenit can always assist you and your company.

Send me a message at LinkedIn and let’s have a chat about it.

Tags : chocolatey, management, MEM, Ninite, software, Windows, WinGet

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