It’s built into the latest builds of Windows 10 and 11 and Server, and can be installed into many.

To see if you have it, try winget from CMD or Powershell. If you don’t have it on a newer platform with the Microsoft store, here’s the link:

learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/

One good way to try it, is to install Microsoft .NET framework (SDK) 6, thus, from administrative Powershell:

winget install --id Microsoft.DotNet.Runtime.6 --silent --accept-source-agreements

I learned just now that if you add other seemingly valuable options to the one above, e.g., --scope machine, at least while running as SYSTEM, it will fail citing package not found. So you’ll want to test carefully.

Here’s one proven just now for 7zip (there’s a “search” option in winget to get the ID):

winget install --exact --id 7zip.7zip --accept-package-agreements --silent --scope machine

Here’s one for Google Chrome, needs a bit of extra:

winget.exe install --exact --id Google.Chrome --silent --accept-package-agreements --accept-source-agreements --scope machine

If you do want to use it from the SYSTEM account, in scripting, it gets interesting. You’ll want to first run this:

$ResolveWingetPath = Resolve-Path "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_*_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe"
    if ($ResolveWingetPath){
           $WingetPath = $ResolveWingetPath[-1].Path
    }
$ENV:PATH += ";$WingetPath"

and then winget will run as expected.

Adding Winget on Windows 10/2019/2016 builds 1809 or lower is touch and go. This worked on a recent Server 2019/1809, with the addition to the path above:

# Install VCLibs
Add-AppxPackage 'https://aka.ms/Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx'

# Install Microsoft.UI.Xaml.2.7.3 from NuGet
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/package/Microsoft.UI.Xaml/2.7.3 -OutFile .\microsoft.ui.xaml.2.7.3.zip
Expand-Archive .\microsoft.ui.xaml.2.7.3.zip
Add-AppxPackage .\microsoft.ui.xaml.2.7.3\tools\AppX\x64\Release\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.2.7.appx

# Install the latest release of Microsoft.DesktopInstaller from GitHub
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/releases/latest/download/Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe.msixbundle -OutFile .\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe.msixbundle
Add-AppxPackage .\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe.msixbundle

# Fix permissions
TAKEOWN /F "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /R /A /D Y
ICACLS "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /grant Administrators:F /T