Scoop is a small command line based package manager for Windows. It’s often used by developers and software testers to automate installation of programs and tools on Windows machines.
Here’s a quick guide on how to install it, secretly, on a window VM. All of these steps can be done from the Windows Terminal powershell console.
I’m working on another project which will use this pretty extensively, so get it set up if you’re interested in whatever that’s going to be
Installing It
The scoop documentation gives us a nice easy powershell command to run
irm https://get.scoop.sh | iex
Install some basic tools we’ll need
scoop install git sudo
Enable the extended package repo and update
scoop bucket add extras
scoop update
Hiding It
Make the scoop folder less likely to be seen. This marks the folder as hidden and as a system file. System files are hidden even if hidden files are set to be visible.
attrib +H +S C:\Users\[username]\scoop
Hide the Scoop Apps entry from the start menu, not really required but scammers might get suspicious.
del /Q /F "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Scoop Apps"
These have an annoying habit of coming back. Check the start menu after every update or install.
Extras
Here’s how to update everything that Scoop installed to the most recent versions.
scoop update
scoop update *
You can install pretty much anything you can imagine. Although you might have to create custom shortcuts since we hid the Scoop Apps folder from the start menu.
scoop install anydesk
scoop install spotify
To search for available applications use
scoop search [whatever]