Update all out-of-date Windows programs in batch

Update all your out-of-date Windows programs in a batch using the powerful winget command-line tool. Learn the commands for a fast and efficient system.

December 14, 2023 · 2 min read

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Christophe

Markdown, WSL and Docker lover ~ Insatiable curious.

Cet article existe aussi en français — lire la version française.

This article is over a year old but was reviewed on July 30, 2026 — the content is still accurate.

Update all out-of-date Windows programs in batch

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TL;DR

This article covers winget, Windows' built-in package manager: batch-upgrading every installed program with winget upgrade --all --silent (optionally with --include-unknown to catch more), listing installed software and available updates with winget list --upgrade-available, and upgrading a single application by name.

Use the winget tool to install and manage applications

If you're working under Linux or WSL, you know very well the sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade instruction to ask the operating system to upgrade programs present on your disk with a newer version.

Under Windows, since a few years (starting with Windows 10), there is such command too: it's winget.

By running winget upgrade --all --silent in a DOS (or Powershell) console started with admin rights, you'll start a process that will scan (in a second) your computer, detect which programs are installed on it and check if a newer version exists (and known by winget).

Starting winget

Then, because we've added the --all --silent flags, we just allow winget to process to the updates without asking confirmation. Let the computer do its work for a few minutes and... tadaaa... you've fresh and updated versions of your software (the ones supported by winget).

Running winget

Winget has detected that 17 programs should be upgraded and, one by one, will download and install newer versions.

Easy no?

Including unknown ones

Marc Dechèvre tells me that winget upgrade --all --silent command found 29 updates to make on his machine and that adding the --include-unknown flag found 15 more.

Getting the list of software

Running winget list returns the list of all software installed on your machine and winget list --upgrade-available only those when a newer version is available on the internet.

And, to get the list sorted, make sure you're under PowerShell and run this command instead: winget list --upgrade-available | Sort-Object. The result isn't really nice but, at least, application names are sorted.