Package Control Center

A software lifecycle management platform for Windows.

A single desktop interface for Winget, Chocolatey and Microsoft Store — with software inventory, updates, package collections, system snapshots, machine migration and drift detection.

If you want a Winget GUI, a Chocolatey GUI, or one place to manage Microsoft Store packages alongside everything else, PCC does all three.

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What is Package Control Center?

Package Control Center (PCC) is a Windows package manager GUI and software lifecycle management tool for system administrators and power users. It brings Winget, Chocolatey and Microsoft Store management under one interface, so you can see what is installed, update it, prove what changed, and rebuild a machine without rebuilding the list from memory.

Use it as a:

• Windows package manager GUI — one window instead of three command lines
• Windows software updater — a real update queue with progress and retry
• Software inventory tool — export exactly what a machine has installed
• Application management console — ignore, pin, and control update scope
• Migration tool — carry a known-good package set to a new machine

Everything runs locally. No account, no telemetry, no cloud service.

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Table of Contents

• What is Package Control Center?
• Features
• Requirements
• Installation
• Building from Source
• Where PCC Stores Your Data
• Providers
• Project Structure
• Documentation
• Contributing
• Security
• License

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Features

Area	What PCC does
Multi-provider updates	One update queue across Winget, Chocolatey and Microsoft Store, each provider tracked separately.
Software inventory	Aggregated installed-package list, filterable and exportable to JSON/CSV.
Package collections	Curate groups of packages, export/import them, and install a whole collection in one action.
System snapshots	Capture a point-in-time inventory and compare any two snapshots.
Drift detection	Compare the current machine against a snapshot, backup or collection and see exactly what changed.
Machine migration	Restore a package set onto a new machine, with a preview before anything is installed.
Backup & restore	Inventory backups plus restore reports, written to a single well-known folder.
Update queue	Serialised updates with live progress, per-item logs, safe shutdown and manual retry.
Ignore & pin rules	Suppress noisy packages, or pin specific ones so bulk updates skip them.
Application-in-use detection	Detects blockers (0x80070020), terminates them and retries.
Light & dark themes	Persisted theme, applied before first paint.

PCC is local-first: no account, no telemetry, no cloud service. Your data never leaves your machine.

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Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11 (PCC uses winget, Chocolatey and the Microsoft Store)
• At least one package provider:
  • WinGet — preinstalled on Windows 11
  • Chocolatey — optional
  • Microsoft Store — via the built-in winget msstore source
• Administrator rights are required for Chocolatey install/upgrade/uninstall. PCC detects this and offers a one-click elevated relaunch.

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Installation

1. Go to Releases.
2. Download PackageControlCenter-<version>-Setup.exe.
3. Run the installer (NSIS). Desktop and Start Menu shortcuts are created.

Portable builds are published alongside the installer for machines where you cannot install software.

On first launch PCC creates its data folder and, if you are upgrading from an older release, automatically copies your previous data across. Nothing is ever deleted without your say-so — see Legacy data migration.

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Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ and npm
• Windows (the provider CLIs are Windows-only)

Steps

git clone https://github.com/NB-InfoTech/Package-Control-Center.git
cd Package-Control-Center
npm install

npm run dev          # run with hot reload
npm run typecheck    # strict TypeScript check (main + renderer)
npm run build        # compile main, preload and renderer

Packaging

.\generate-installer.ps1     # NSIS installer + portable build -> release/

Scripts

Script	Purpose
npm run dev	Run the app with hot reload.
npm run build	Type-check and build main, preload and renderer.
npm run typecheck	Type-check both TypeScript projects.
npm run lint	ESLint over src.
npm run preview	Preview the built renderer.

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Where PCC Stores Your Data

Everything lives on your machine:

~/.package-control-center/
├── config.json                 # settings
├── ignored-packages.json       # ignore list
├── pinned-packages.json        # pin list
├── collections.json            # package collections
├── snapshots.json              # system snapshots
├── queue-state.json            # update queue (safe-shutdown restore)
├── logs/                       # application + startup logs
└── migration-complete.flag     # written after the one-time data migration

~/Documents/Package Control Center Backups/   # inventory backups
~/Documents/Package Control Center Reports/   # restore reports

Legacy data migration

PCC was originally released as Winget Control Center. If you are upgrading from that era, your data is migrated automatically and exactly once:

• Settings, collections, snapshots, backups, logs and queue state are copied into the new locations.
• A migration-complete.flag marker records that this happened.
• Nothing is deleted. The old folders stay on disk so you can inspect them and remove them yourself whenever you are satisfied.

Backup and report folders follow the same rule.

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Providers

PCC treats each package manager as a first-class provider and routes every operation to the right one:

Provider	Source	Elevation
Winget	Community repository	No (self-elevates via the Windows consent prompt)
Chocolatey	choco CLI	Yes — PCC must run as Administrator
Microsoft Store	winget --source msstore	No

Providers can be enabled or disabled independently in Settings. The About page shows each provider's health (Ready / Unavailable / Disabled / Error) and its installed version, detected live.

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Project Structure

src/
├── main/                  # Electron main process
│   ├── index.ts           # App lifecycle, window, safe shutdown
│   ├── ipc/               # IPC handlers (the only renderer-facing surface)
│   ├── services/
│   │   ├── paths/         # DataPathService / BackupPathService / ReportPathService
│   │   ├── providers/     # Winget, Chocolatey, Microsoft Store + registry
│   │   ├── config/        # ConfigService
│   │   ├── migration/     # Legacy folder migration
│   │   └── logging/       # Logger
│   └── utils/
├── preload/               # contextBridge API (contextIsolation + sandbox)
└── renderer/              # React UI (Tailwind + shadcn-style components)

Architecture notes

• contextIsolation and sandbox are both enabled; the renderer has no direct Node access and reaches the main process only through the preload bridge.
• Every persisted path resolves through a path service, so there is exactly one definition of where data lives.
• Provider-specific CLI parsing stays inside each provider implementation; the UI and queue engine depend only on the shared provider interface.

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Documentation

Document	Contents
CHANGELOG.md	Release history.
MULTI_PROVIDER_ARCHITECTURE.md	How the provider layer is designed.
PROVIDER_CAPABILITY_MATRIX.md	Per-provider feature support.
V2_2_ROADMAP.md	Planned work.
LEGACY_REFERENCE_AUDIT.md	Legacy naming audit.

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Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first — it covers the dev workflow, coding standards and what makes a good bug report.

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Security

Please do not open a public issue for security problems. Follow the process in SECURITY.md.

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License

Released under the MIT License.

Copyright © 2024-2026 NB InfoTech (Package Control Center)