Winget failing on some PCs

[jmak]

We had started using Winget to install and update software, but have found that it didn't work on some PCs. We got thrown by the fact that the CDN was down last week, but we're still struggling - it's something on our PCs. They're were all built from the same image with the same settings and policies.

 

On a PC where it works, if I run

Winget source update

I get the response:

Updating all sources...

Updating source: msstore...

Done

Updating source: winget...

Done

 

On the machines that aren't working I get:

Updating all sources...

Updating source: msstore...

Done

Updating source: winget...

Cancelled

 

I have tried multiple networks, with firewalls enabled and disabled, reset Winget.

 

Any other suggestions very welcome! This was supposed to be my answer to a reliable way of making sure we had a standard way to install software and kept installed software up to date.

[jonbd]

We had similar issues with this. Winget versions 1.2 and below are pointing to the old CDN that has been deprecated, so can't connect to anything. If you upgrade them to 1.6 or above they should start working again. We downloaded the msix from github and pushed it out to affected devices.

[jmak]

This was exactly the problem. Unfortunately I didn't easily find the correct msix - all the links I found pointed to a version that tried to install an even older version. Instead I ran

 

Install-Module -Name Microsoft.Winget.Client

 

in PowerShell 7

 

I checked the installed version with the command

 

winget -v

 

Hopefully that might help someone else finding the same issue in future (or me when I forget what I did!

Edited October 19, 2023 by jmak

[jthompson]

Been looking into winget here recently, too.

 

I found that it wasn't working properly when run in an elevated prompt as an admin user. It couldn't pull anything from the winget source when run as that admin user. Worked okay for my regular non-admin user, but then that's not how I want to be able to use it.

 

Signing into the machine as the admin user did something to nudge the DesktopAppInstaller appx that underpins things. Winget commands then work okay as that admin user, either under its own sign-in or in an elevated prompt from a regular user session.