You can now install and update Microsoft Store apps using the command line

i can’t stand Open Microsoft Store. It’s slow to load, confusing to navigate, and full of ads for things I don’t care about. Fortunately, thanks to the new feature, I will never have to open the Microsoft Store again.

Last week, Microsoft announced a brand-new command-line interface for the Microsoft Store, which you can now access by opening PowerShell and typing “store.” If it doesn’t work, make sure you’re running all current Windows 11 updates.

If it works, you’ll see a nice piece of ASCII art as well as a list of subcommands. This tells you how to find, install, and even update software with just a few keystrokes.

Linux users are accustomed to installing programs from the command line, and Mac users know how to find third-party tools for this task, such as MAS for the Mac App Store. I can’t remember a mainstream commercial operating system that includes a way to browse and install software from a commercial app store using only commands.

Windows users can now enjoy the privilege of installing software from the command line.

Courtesy of Justin Bott

Microsoft’s app is very nice. For example, you don’t need to know the exact name of an app to install something. While testing this new interface, I typed “store install Firefox”, not knowing if that would work or not. The tool searched the Store, found the app that was most likely to match Firefox, told me the company that made it (Mozilla, in this case), and asked if that was actually what I wanted to install.

I cannot overstate how easy it is to install the software. Similar services I’ve tested don’t work this way, you need to know the exact name the package manager is using otherwise you’ll get an error. It’s really great to see this done so well.

There are downsides. The tool can only install apps available in the Microsoft Store, which is inherently restrictive. Some very popular applications, including Google Chrome and Paint.net, are not available this way. But there are a lot of applications, and you may not know what is there and what is not. You can type “store search” followed by a query to search the store. You can get more details by typing “View Store” followed by the app name to read more about it.

You can also browse the Microsoft Store. The “Browse App Store” command will tell you some of the categories you can search in, including bestseller lists. Combined, these commands let you do everything you can do in the Microsoft Store, but faster.