I never trusted any “meta” package managers that try to integrate all types of packages into a unified GUI. I already hate how KDE Discover and GNOME Software can also manage Flatpaks, and Ubuntu’s App Center mixes snaps and packages. But since Windows has also become a mess for software developers, I thought I’d give UniGetUI a try.

Purchased by Devolutions back in March, UniGetUI is still an open-source product. Its GitHub page describes it as follows:

UniGetUI is a Windows-first, intuitive GUI for the most common CLI package managers on Windows 10 and 11. Cross-platform builds are also available for macOS and Linux, with support for package managers including WinGet, Scoop, Chocolatey, Homebrew, APT, DNF, Pacman, Flatpak, Snap, pip, npm, Bun, .NET Tool, PowerShell Gallery, and more. With UniGetUI, you can discover, install, update, and uninstall software from multiple package managers through one interface.

Wow. I was only interested in seeing whether it can manage at least my Windows software.

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Right away, it decided to take care of everything I installed via Scoop, PIP, and WinGet, with the important caveat that WinGet considers anything installed via a normal Setup.exe to have been installed by it.

Some updates were successful…

… but some others failed:

One of the most retarde failures concerned ONLYOFFICE:

I don’t remember how and why the fucked-up ONLYOFFICE setup installed the 32-bit build of the suite instead of the 64-bit one, but UniGetUI was so retarded that it tried to “update” a 32-bit app with a newer 64-bit one! Just how stupid can it be to fail to identify the correct platform?

In another case, it tried to update Thinc, which was already in the latest 8.3.13 version, but it nonetheless tried to do something and failed, claiming I need “Microsoft Visual C++ 1.40 or greater.” Not just the runtime! Literally the Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 build tools! If you cannot do what you’re trying to do, don’t even try! What the fuck were you trying to do?!

Next, it couldn’t update SumatraPDF: “No installed package found matching input criteria!” Are you kidding me?! What exactly are you trying to update, and using what?!

Finally, winget-install itself could not be updated, with an error that looks more like bad syntax or a bad argument:

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There is only one way to regain mental sanity after having encountered such a retarded update manager: