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dotnetup walkthrough - ux & graphical improvements#53464

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nagilson wants to merge 37 commits intodotnet:release/dnupfrom
nagilson:nagilson-dnup-walkthrough-ux
Draft

dotnetup walkthrough - ux & graphical improvements#53464
nagilson wants to merge 37 commits intodotnet:release/dnupfrom
nagilson:nagilson-dnup-walkthrough-ux

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@nagilson nagilson commented Mar 14, 2026

Changes

  1. Running 'dotnetup' should initiate the walkthrough instead of exiting
  2. Double-clicking the dotnetup executable should not make it immediately bail out
  3. Add a dotnetup.config.json file which stores the decisions users made in the walkthrough so we don't ask every time
  4. Add interactivity to selecting the default install option and add the dotnetup dotnet option
  5. Don't ask the user every time what version to install
  6. Don't ask the user every time where to do the install
  7. Start predownloading in the walkthrough for what we'll need to install later
  8. Add the dotnetup walkthrough command to enable changing the configuration again later
  9. Fix ordering and grouping of dotnetup --help
  10. Improve spacing/wording/padding and remove instances of raw json data / data structures being dumped into the terminal
  11. Add dotnetup theme command to add themes
  12. Unify colors and make colors align with .net branding (purple colors)
  13. Improvements to admin installs walkthrough
  14. Improvements to selection mode ui
  15. Attempt at introductory box with dotnet bot graphic - seems buggy atm
  16. Adds concurrent installs and concurrent progress graphics
  17. Shimmer animations

nagilson and others added 30 commits January 12, 2026 11:39
We talked about  'shadowing' `dotnet` commands to allow users to ensure `dotnetup` always works until the product is fully integrated with `dotnet.exe` itself - such that the installers and visual studio are not able to break scenarios that rely on `dotnetup`.

I think that is important for us to provide.

This document is a first-pass on what it'd be like to actually implement that. The security portion in particular is interesting, and I'm less compelled by the proposal after trying to write it all out. Nonetheless, I wanted to see where it would take us were we to implement it. Which, I had to do some of the partial implementation so I could reason with how this would work, but that's not included here. That's in the branch `nagilson-shadow-dotnet`.

I'd appreciate having our team chat about this doc and whether we still want to do this or not, or whether there are changes that need to be made at a higher level.
Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
1. Running 'dotnetup' should initiate the walkthrough instead of exiting
2. Double-clicking the dotnetup executable should not make it immediately bail out
3. Add a dotnetup.config.json file which stores the decisions users made in the walkthrough so we don't ask every time
4. Add interactivity to selecting the default install option and add the dotnetup dotnet option
5. Don't ask the user every time what version to install
6. Don't ask the user every time where to do the install
7. Start predownloading in the walkthrough for what we'll need to install later
8. Add the dotnetup walkthrough command to enable changing the configuration again later
9. Fix ordering and grouping of dotnetup --help
10. Improve spacing/wording/padding and remove instances of raw json data / data structures being dumped into the terminal
This analyzer helps prevent copilot from writing functions which are too long so it will naturally break them up into separate pieces.
Add dotnetup theme command to add themes
Unify colors and make colors align with .net branding (purple colors)
Improvements to admin installs walkthrough
Improvements to selection mode ui
Attempt at introductory box with dotnet bot graphic - seems buggy atm
Adds concurrent runtime installs
Also adds concurrent sdk install support scaffolding
fixes bug with path replacement
fixes bug with needing to enter to complete (bad design)
might be a problem if other text appears mid way through the install
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