Chocolatey II Plugin Reviewed

On August 13, 2015, in Projects, by Cubert aka (Cube Dweller)

The New Chocolatey II Plugin

Cubert has been going gang busters with the new Chocolatey II plugin and now he is ready to show everyone a little of what he has been doing. So without any further adieu let me introduce to you the new Chocolatey II Plugin for LabTech!

 

A little history about Chocolatey Nuget

Chocolatey is a package manager for Windows (like apt-get or yum but for Windows). It was designed to be a decentralized framework for quickly installing applications and tools that you need. It is built on the NuGet infrastructure currently using PowerShell as its focus for delivering packages from the distros to your computer.  Chocolatey is like apt-get, but built with Windows in mind (there are differences and limitations). For those unfamiliar with APT/Debian, think about Chocolatey as a global silent installer for applications and tools. It can also do configuration tasks and anything that you can do with PowerShell. The power you hold with a tool like Chocolatey is only limited by your imagination! Chocolatey is the brain child of Rob Reynolds, a passionate developer and technology guru.

 

How is Chocolatey different than Ninite?

Great question, see Chocolatey vs Ninite.

 

The Chocolatey Plugin for LabTech

Squidworks has harnessed the power of Chocolatey and brought it into the LabTech RMM platform. This allows MSPs to control mass amounts of Windows systems and software applications in a very simple to use interface.  In fact, managing software applications could not be easier when using the Chocolatey plugin for LabTech.  As you read further I will go over the plugins functions and how you to can harness this power for your MSP.

 

The Master Control manager

The Master Control manager provides the on and off  controls over whole system. The configuration tab of the manager incorporates licensing and the common settings to control auto installs and auto updates.

ViewMenu-Configuration

 

 

Approved Apps

This is where you setup your application list, we recently added the ability to set a repository for each application you want to control. This allows a MSP to pick and choose where they get each application. We also provide a “seed” button that will auto populate the list with the most common apps used like Java, Chrome and Adobe.

 

ViewMenu-ApprovedApps

 

 

 

Global Excludes

You can control who is allowed to install applications at a global level, make quick work of allowing or denying installs across clients. This was completely rewritten after Beta 6 release to be more accurate and faster.

 

ViewMenu-Excludes

 

 

Global Graphs

See what applications are being distributed across your MSP, monitor the versions of Chocolatey installed across you client base and see the current daily install activity.

 

ViewMenu-Stats

 

 

 

Now we move to the Client Level

 

Client Configuration

Here you can include or exclude a client directly or select any set of apps to exclude from the client as a whole.

 

client-configuration

 

 

 

Client level – System bulk management

Here you can select systems and applications from the approved apps list and manually install them, update or delete them. Everything is reported back to plugin in real time so you get to see what is going on as it happens.

 

client-systems

 

 

Computer Level Management

Computer Configuration

We provide very granular control over who, what and when applications get installed. You can control down to the PC level if apps get installed and what gets installed to provide a very low level of control for the distribution of applications.

 

computer-configuration

 

 

 

Computer Software

At the computer software level you can do one off installs of any software anywhere for some really extreme flexibility, any applications installed will be included in updates, they will get listed and version checked as part of the maintenance cycles. You are also able to update and delete software at this level making it very convenient for MSPs to manage software . Everything is reported back to plugin in real time so you get to see what is going on as it happens.

 

computer-software

 

 

 

 

Behind the Scenes

Chocolatey Maintenance

This service checks based on your desired settings for systems that need the Chocolatey Application installed and also manages all versioning management of all software installed on PCs

 

Chocolatey Installer

This service monitors PCs for software installed and or approved and not yet installed and makes sure that the PCs get the new software based on the Maintenance cycles selected.

 

Chocolatey Updater

This service checks for and executes updates for both the Chocolatey application and all applications installed.

 

All behind the scenes services will run at least once every 24 hours and can be set to run as much as once per hour by adjusting the controls in the master control.

 

Now released and available at http://www.plugins4labtech.com

Thanks and have a great day!

Cubert

10 Responses to “Chocolatey II Plugin Reviewed”

  1. Rami says:

    Thanks for your work!
    Where can i download this plugin?

  2. Cubert says:

    Plugin is in final testing and should be released shortly.

  3. Tim says:

    Cubert, this looks VERY promising and I for one cannot wait until you release this! Thanks for all your hard work and providing this to the community

  4. Mat says:

    Cubert this looks amazing! can’t wait to test it out!

  5. Jeff says:

    Looks amazing! can’t wait to download it!

  6. Lee says:

    We use your plugin now and just cant wait for this!!! Wish it was out today! Any chance we can get a pre-release to test with? Keep up the GREAT work!

  7. We have now released Build 2.0.0.180, Which includes several new features and many minor fixes needed from build .155

    Check it out at http://chocolatey.squidworks.net

  8. Ben says:

    Any chance there is a little demo/trial of this? this looks great. Right now we use App-Care but this looks alot better. Before Im allowed to spend 1200 bucks on it I would have to get approval on what exactly we will do with it..

    the first one was pretty good, Im sure this is fantastic, I just need to work with it so we can figure out how it will save us time/money to mgmt.

    thanks

  9. Cubert says:

    Of course, Now released and available at http://chocolatey.squidworks.net

    Goto the support section and pull the download. Everyone gets 5 free agents for life.

  10. Brad says:

    We had a problem with version 1 of this plugin that destroyed the OS and forced us to rebuild multiple client computers. I love the features and pricing of this but we are gun shy of touching Chocolatey. Has their been significant testing and measures put in place to prevent this from happening again?

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