microsoft / microsoft/winget-cli

winget upgrade all packages requiring admin priviledges at once

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Command-Upgrade Issue-Feature
Dominant language
C++
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Avg merge
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Description

Description of the new feature / enhancement

I'd like to have the possibility to filter all packages that require admin priviledges and upgrade them in a single command.
This way I could run an elevated command prompt and run the upgrade from there.

Background:
My company requires to use a different user for gaining admin rights. This way, the update process is very cumbersome requiring to enter username, password and second factor for every upgradable package that requires elevation.
Running winget upgrade --all in an elevated command prompt (under the admin user) is not an option - then the packages with "local installation" would go to the admin user instead of my "default user".

Any thoughts on this or have I misunderstood something?

Side question:
Is "package requires elevated rights" the same as package requires "system scope"? Can I inspect this for a given package? If yes I could do the filtering myself and write such an update script.

Proposed technical implementation details

Something like winget upgrade --all-system-scope to upgrade all packages requiring elevated access at once.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the upgrade command and its existing --all handling. Investigate how WinGet distinguishes elevated access from system scope and whether package metadata exposes that distinction. Done means a documented command can select packages requiring elevation, upgrade them together, and preserve per-user installations.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli, operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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