Question related to winget's --interactive flag

[felixsanz]

When using --interactive, it brings up the installer setup screen so I can select what I want to install and what not (along other things like change install path). But what happens on upgrades? (winget upgrade), are this things remembered and respected?

[mdanish-kh]

winget upgrade simply invokes the installer with args specified in the manifest, and then it's the installer that controls how the current installation is updated. Currently winget doesn't store state, like installed location, of the application by itself. There are open issues for this feature request. Consider putting a 👍 to raise their priority:

• [Feature Request] Keep install location when upgrading packages not originally installed by winget winget-cli#1002
• Package install locations should be remembered when updating winget-cli#3045

[felixsanz]

so there is no point installing this packages with winget? because the upgrade mechanism will break your intentions on every release

[mdanish-kh]

If the installer supports a "Location" switch (i.e., specifying install location from the CLI args), then you can use winget upgrade <package> --location <InstallLocation> that will hopefully offer a graceful experience. If not, you can use the --interactive switch with the upgrade command to launch the installer and select a location from there

[felixsanz]

but what if I choose to install some components and some others not? i'll have to use winget upgrade <package> --interactive all the time to avoid having those unwanted components installed? so there is no upgrade mechanism here, it's a full install all the time?

[mdanish-kh]

For the packages that install multiple components, my answer would be similar to #131706 (comment). WinGet cannot control what the installer will "install" or how the "upgrade" process will be carried out. It tries to offer a default experience as if you were running the installer manually with the silent switches. Any custom behavior needs to be specified via --override or --custom (or other switches e.g., --location) provided the installer has support for that functionality via the CLI args.