I used the -l option to install, why is it not installed to the specified location on the hard disk?

[dong-lufei]

winget install DuongDieuPhap.ImageGlass -l "D:\ImageGlass"
or
winget install ImageGlass -l "D:\ImageGlass"

Neither installed to location "D:\ImageGlass"，Instead it installed to the default location C:\Program Files\ImageGlass

[Trenly]

Not all installers support the -l switch. In some cases the installers can be marked as not having a location switch at all, and in other cases the location switch is simply unknown.

winget-cli/src/AppInstallerCLIPackage/Shared/Strings/en-us/winget.resw

Lines 340 to 342 in fe1eef3

	<data name="LocationArgumentDescription" xml:space="preserve">
	<value>Location to install to (if supported)</value>
	</data>

[ccnly]

Ideally, winget would throw a warning if the installer doesn't recognize or use the -l switch.

[Trenly]

Ideally, winget would throw a warning if the installer doesn't recognize or use the -l switch.

We do have the ability to add that information into the manifests if an app is known to truly not support a location switch. However, because it is an optional parameter, not all manifests contain that field and in many cases the installers do support a location switch, it just isn’t known (or hasn’t been added to the manifest).

[github-account1111]

and in many cases the installers do support a location switch

What's the location switch? Is it /l? /loc? -loc? --loc? --dest? When I install a package with winget install --location C:\install\path, does winget just try a bunch of possible switches to see what sticks? Can't it throw a warning if nothing sticks?

[denelon]

Run the command with --verbose-logs --logs you will see all arguments used to execute the installer by WinGet. It may depend on the installer type and in many cases, WinGet has been built with the argument for the given installer type.

[dong-lufei]

Are there any configurations that I can download and install to the path "D:\winget" by default?

I install a software, such as winget install abcd, and then the software abcd is installed in the "d:\winget" folder.

[Trenly]

As of right now there is only the defaultInstallRoot , but that is only activated if the installer requires a location

[michael-hiegl]

In my opinion, it's not ok when i'm using the --location flag and the application gets installed somewhere else regardless. Either make it mandatory for publishers that the --location flag takes effect or return a warning/info to the terminal which should be followed by a continue (Y/N) selection.

[denelon]

Some installers appear to support the argument, but in reality, they don't, or if the location isn't properly escaped (which depends on the shell) it may not work.

[github-account1111]

Can't winget abort if a package happens to not support the argument? Much better to not do enough than do too much. Also, what's the argument? --path?

[denelon]

In some cases, there is no way for WinGet to know if the argument for the location doesn't behave correctly. In those cases, the installer would need to be modified.