Just an FYI, I don’t use windows and do not know how the user experience is to use this chocolatey, this package manager. Nevertheless, it seems like people download freecad through it.
Here is the page that represent the FreeCAD package https://chocolatey.org/packages/freecad
Currently they only package stable. I’ve made a request to the maintainers to also package the 0.18_pre release
Good to see the downloads. 
I tested this some time ago. It seems they are just re-packaging the win installer.
I would strongly recommend a Miniconda https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21405 based solution on Win.
This is just my opinion.
So..in other words, you’re not in favor of promoting this solution ?
When I tested last, there was no real dependency tracking. My experience at that time was that chocolatey replicated the win installer (which contains all the dependencies in the bundle, similar to an AppImage). I’m open to be educated if this is not true.
I’m wary of diluting resources. I’m sure I’m not using conda as intended, but it’s as close to apt as I’ve seen for Win. Thanks to @looo our conda based builds have the most advanced dependencies, it has the potential to be a cross-platform rolling release. (Yea I drank the cool-aid)
I use chocolatey and I like it, it’s a powerful tool to keep up to date your softwares on Windows platform.
Nevertheless, I don’t use it anymore for freecad or blender because I use daily builds.
FreeCAD-0.17.13541.9948ee4-WIN-x64 was posted to the FreeCAD releases page on September 12. It was “approved” by Chocolatey on October 13.
Probably not very useful for pre_release development versions of FreeCAD.
Gene
Not as effective, maybe but useful, i pushback on that. I think the more testers we have the better..especially for py3/qt5
Agreed. I’ll try to amplify some of the positives of chocolatey (@Opus please correct any misconceptions I might have)
Chocolatey provides a means to update binary packages on Win. FreeCAD doesn’t have an “auto-updater” on Win so this is useful. They do virus checks and appear to have some means to clear false positives from the virus checking software. This is VERY useful. I think this means they vet the FreeCAD installer and makes it easier for users to update the package.
More distribution channels are good for FreeCAD, as long as they are quality “re-distributions”. Chocolatey seems to be this.
If they could offer “freecad-daily” similar to what we do on the PPA that would be great. One of their pluses is to vet the packages, so I don’t know how realistic this is to their model.
If the Chocolatey team “reaches in” here I can try to help, but I don’t have the bandwidth to “reach-out”
Thank you for your fair reply. Much appreciated.
Your stance is noted 
Lets see how the chocolatey devs reply.
Just tracking the downstream thread: https://github.com/chocolatey/chocolatey-coreteampackages/issues/1146#issuecomment-447196942
I am working on modifying the current FreeCAD Chocolatey Package to be able to install the Development version and the stable versions of FreeCAD. The GitHub user luzpaz mentioned that I should reach out to the FreeCAD Forum user sgrogan who mentioned above about “freecad-daily”. I’m interested in adding this to the Chocolatey Package, but I can’t find any links to windows “freecad-daily”
Thanks for the Assistance
RedBaron
https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.18_pre
I upload the builds manually so it’s not quite “daily”, maybe 4-5 times a week. There is no installer for these “developer” builds. 7zip offers good compression.
What’s necessary to make this easier?
So the URL for the FreeCAD releases is a good URL to detect all releases Dev & Stable?
The Dev releases seem as though they are much like a portable application. They just need to be unzipped to the directory of the users choice.
The general Directory for these Dev releases would be ??? sgrogan ???
The Stable releases have a dedicated installer.
I just need to do some testing with the Chocolatey installing script to switch between the Dev and the Stable versions.
Thanks all for the help.
The main URL https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases
The 0.18_pre builds are here https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.18_pre
The 0.17 stable release is here https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.17
You are correct that the 0.18_pre builds are portable. This makes it easy for the user to have the stable release and developer builds side by side.
Also note that there are two versions of the x64 package the Conda_PY3QT5 are preferred.
When we release 0.18 the 0.18_pre will go away. A 0.18 release and a 0.19_pre will be added.
This is by recommendation or your preferred version to use?
I can work on have it be a user switch to grab the Conda_PY3QT5 version of the x64 in the Dev package.
Both. Both QT4 and PY2 are nearing end of life, so FreeCAD will be moving in this direction on all platforms.
I asked in the Chocolatey forum, but I will ask here too.
The dev versions don’t install perse.
- Would the user like to have a application shortcut on the Desktop, Start Menu, or Both?
- Also would they like it in a custom directory location?
- My other question is about uninstalling a
devversion. Would the user like to have the application just deleted directory & shortcuts?
- Just the directory?
- Just the shortcuts?
I will await your reply on how to proceed with the package un/install questions
RB
Thanks for the progress on this. I wonder if more FreeCAD windows folks can weigh in on this?
It would be good to have the users decide. Automatic, delta updates, would be the ideal.
I’m sorry to say, but Automatic, delta updates is a different language to me. I don’t know what you mean by it. If delta updates refers to something else other than https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases for the windows development channel. I am completely lost.
I will setup the package to include Package Parameters that will allow the installing user to decide were to have FreeCAD to be installed.
Does the exe install have a directory option/switch?
Thanks for the assistance.
RB