`dotnetup` walkthrough - ux & graphical improvements by nagilson · Pull Request #53464 · dotnet/sdk

nagilson · 2026-03-14T20:45:29Z

Changes

Running 'dotnetup' should initiate the walkthrough instead of exiting
Double-clicking the dotnetup executable should not make it immediately bail out
Add a dotnetup.config.json file which stores the decisions users made in the walkthrough so we don't ask every time
Add interactivity to selecting the default install option and add the dotnetup dotnet option (Resolves dotnetup: By default, don't modify admin PATH on Windows #53076)
Don't ask the user every time what version to install, Resolves dotnetup: Remove prompt for channel to install #53282
Don't ask the user every time where to do the install
Start predownloading in the walkthrough for what we'll need to install later (Resolves Consider Pre-Downloading in dotnetup walkthrough #52643)
Add the dotnetup walkthrough command to enable changing the configuration again later (
Resolves Separate dotnetup interactive / noninteractive modes #51584)
Fix ordering and grouping of dotnetup --help
Improve spacing/wording/padding and remove instances of raw json data / data structures being dumped into the terminal
Add dotnetup theme colors to unify walkthrough color output
Unify colors and make colors align with .net branding (purple colors)
Improvements to admin installs walkthrough (resolves
Resolves DNUP Admin Installs -> Local Installs #51101)
Improvements to selection mode ui
Introduction Graphic Display
Adds concurrent installs and concurrent progress graphics (resolves Resolves Support dotnetup runtime install installing multiple things #52679)
Shimmer animations
Explanation of channels / getting started guide. (Resolves DNUP Initial Walkthrough #51100)
Adds aliases 'aspnet' for aspnetcore, (Resolves dotnetup should probably accept "aspnet" as a specifier for the aspnetcore runtime #53283 )

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>

…tnetup-dotnet-impl-mrc

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 reverts commit 97265bd.

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

…theres a lot of installs

…sity for subcomponent outputs in test

We cant impelement our own as spectre.console is sealed in this class, there are too many optoins, we should instead defer the install of these installs to the end after setup of dotnetup so someone can get working. I tried to keep the code from before because I thought that formatting was clear and it is easier to make a y/n decision in this regard.

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/List/ListCommand.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Runtime/Install/RuntimeInstallCommand.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/GarbageCollectionRunner.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallExecutor.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallWorkflow.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallWalkthrough.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/List/ListCommand.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Runtime/Install/RuntimeInstallCommand.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallExecutor.cs

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallWalkthrough.cs

nagilson · 2026-03-17T20:16:14Z

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallWalkthrough.cs

+        DotnetInstallRootConfiguration currentDotnetInstallRoot,
+        string resolvedInstallPath)
+    {
+        if (DotnetupUtilities.PathsEqual(resolvedInstallPath, currentDotnetInstallRoot.Path))


All this function is supposed to do is decide whether or not we need to replace the default install. Please do not have any prompting or outputs.

nagilson · 2026-03-17T20:22:43Z

src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallWorkflow.cs

+    /// Determines whether the installation should be set as the system default.
+    /// Checks the saved config first; only shows prompts when the config is absent.
+    /// </summary>
+    private static bool DeriveSetDefaultInstall(


This logic is hard to follow, bloated, and includes differing conventions in the code. Default install could mean modifying the profile or it could mean modifying system PATH. We should only interface with a variable that contains the path preference from the user, which comes from a function in the walkthrough that gets the config or prompts if necessary. Then the walkthrough or somewhere else should have a function which returns whether to replace PATH (which is really about the path preference on windows being 1 value) and a function which returns whether to convertSystemInstalls (rather than the term 'admin') which returns that the path option is not != isolated.

src/Installer/Microsoft.Dotnet.Installation/Internal/ScopedMutex.cs

src/Installer/Microsoft.Dotnet.Installation/InstallComponent.cs

src/Resolvers/Microsoft.DotNet.NativeWrapper/.editorconfig

nagilson · 2026-03-17T22:45:41Z

Let's remove the 'theme' command for now and we can add that later, it's a little too much to add onto all of this. We can create a .md file as a github issue that links to the commit we have here with the theme command code as a great launch point. Let's also remove the dotnetup dotnet commits from this history / code so stuff is properly isolated.

dsplaisted · 2026-03-18T04:54:46Z

This is great, lots of nice improvements. I love the UI polish!

I tried it out a bit and here's my feedback so far:

I tried running the build script (build.cmd) and it launched the walkthrough (or at least prompted me for the path preference) when it went to install the .NET runtimes using dotnetup. The walkthrough should be skipped if not in interactive mode, and interactive mode should be off if called from a script. I think the .NET CLI does this by checking if output is redirected- maybe we're not redirecting output here.
The walkthrough should probably also be skipped if the install path is specified
We discussed the different path preference modes, and I think where we landed (very minimally documented here) is that instead of 3 options and surfacing a "mode" concept, we would have a yes/no question: "Would you like to modify your environment (PATH and other variables) to set the C:\Users\daplaist\AppData\Local\dotnet as the default dotnet root?". Then on Windows if they choose yes and there's a Program Files install of .NET, we'd ask "Would you like to remove C:\Program Files\dotnet from the system PATH?", with a similar explanation / help text as you have for replacement mode.
Mode selection references dotnetup dotnet, but I think I saw that you were going to pull that out of this PR
"Select an example channel to get started:" Why "example"?
It looks like the selection UI shows a maximum of 5 items at once, but there's no indicator that there are more available if you scroll down.
Download / install progress:
- The alignment of the install message seems weird. I would expect it to be left-aligned like the download message is
- I'm not sure why, but it seems weird to me that "Downloading" changes to "Downloaded" and "Installing" changes to "Installed." I think maybe I'd like it better if it changed to "Downloading dotnet (runtime) DONE" or something. But this may just be me.
dotnetup runtime install 7.0 8.0 8.01 - downloads 7.0 and 8.0 before giving error that 8.01 is invalid. Probably it should fail immediately (-ish)

nagilson and others added 30 commits January 12, 2026 11:39

grammar fix

78ab6a5

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

grammar

ba923d1

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

capitalize windows

63dbc24

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

Merge branch 'release/dnup' into nagilson-dotnetup-dotnet-design

c3e5aae

fix dotnetup dotnet doc

cace20d

Basic implementation

67bc643

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/release/dnup' into nagilson-do…

43ee7c0

…tnetup-dotnet-impl-mrc

interactivity test

b22e7d0

copilot instructions for multiple agents running tests

97265bd

Revert "copilot instructions for multiple agents running tests"

330e07a

This reverts commit 97265bd.

Copilot instructions for dotnet up running multiple agents

6f2fdf0

codework space launches properly

86532d7

Dim first run notice text.

5090726

Add Meziantou Analyzer

d0fceb7

This analyzer helps prevent copilot from writing functions which are too long so it will naturally break them up into separate pieces.

split up too long functions into sub components

1c2a6a2

reduce duplicated code for admin prompt

a7cb3c1

Improve option selector and dimming / progress has 'shimmer'

91b7591

improve formatting.

21a13e9

walkthrough untracked and improve shimmer speed

050aa43

Add aliases for runtime component specs for easier typing

506425e

Also adds concurrent sdk install support scaffolding fixes bug with path replacement fixes bug with needing to enter to complete (bad design)

Concurrent SDK install, actually install admin installs into local

794bcb6

enforce utf8 encoding for pretty text bar

27ab458

Various fixes for color display and whitespaces

01e65f7

try to display summary line at the end

849b684

might be a problem if other text appears mid way through the install

leverage concurrent install in the toolset

0208485

concurrent cache load

6991aff

add throttle limit so we don't download an insane amount of stuff if …

80e6042

…theres a lot of installs

nagilson added 4 commits March 14, 2026 16:55

improved throttling - dont spawn 20 threads lol

277226c

validate manifest contents

9908c3c

padding and lower concurrency as the cdn throttles

e8ecb61

lower concurrency as cdn throttles

7491bd3

build-analysis bot mentioned this pull request Mar 15, 2026

dotnet-watch tests failing #40006

Open

padding (again)

2380d63

This was referenced Mar 15, 2026

dotnetup: Drop STS channel #53471

Merged

dotnetup: Accept 'aspnet' as alias for 'aspnetcore' runtime type #53472

Closed

dotnetup: Unify version properties across projects #53473

Merged

nagilson added 11 commits March 16, 2026 10:49

Allow selection of installs to migrate

007f33d

Disable ansi support for console rendering in banner tests

3008045

Don't print warnings for intermediate directories on unix - add verbo…

2da36bd

…sity for subcomponent outputs in test

Comment to improve clarity on the code

4a00ef8

Alignment test improvements

727edd5

Removed the dotnet bot art - for now it looks tacky

b47281a

improve instruction prompt on conversions

6b96466

Properly defer install copies, use past tense verbs on completion

e6a7617

don't copy installed output code

225123b

improved error message outputs

a3805c0

nagilson commented Mar 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

Explanation of channels walkthrough + code feedback

fb3721d

nagilson commented Mar 17, 2026

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src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallWalkthrough.cs Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

nagilson commented Mar 17, 2026

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src/Installer/dotnetup/Commands/Shared/InstallWalkthrough.cs Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

nagilson commented Mar 17, 2026

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nagilson mentioned this pull request Mar 17, 2026

Dotnetup: Support installing multiple runtimes at once #53469

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