Installing Using WinGet

This topic describes how to install Merge for Windows using the Microsoft WinGet command-line tool. Merge can also be installed from an MSI (Windows Installer) setup package downloaded from the Araxis website. The difference between the two installation methods is purely one of convenience.

Information Past releases of Merge may not be available via WinGet. To install older versions, see Installing from an MSI (Windows Installer) Setup Package.

Before installation:

  1. Please check the system requirements in the Release Notes on the Araxis website to ensure that your system is compatible with Araxis Merge. Any operating system updates that may be required for your system are mentioned on that page.

  2. Ensure that your serial number’s support expiry date is after the build date of the version of Merge that you are installing. For more information about serial numbers and support expiry dates, please see Understanding Serial Numbers, Support Expiry & Upgrade/Support Entitlement.

Installation

Warning The instructions below assume that you are familiar with the WinGet tool and that you have the latest version of WinGet installed. For further information about WinGet, please see Use the WinGet tool to install and manage applications on the Microsoft website.

Information Following a new release of Merge on the Araxis Website, it may take a short time for the latest version to become available via WinGet. This delay is due to the approvals process for the Windows Package Manager Community Repository.

Typical installation (no Windows administrator privilege required)

Warning If an earlier version of Merge is already installed on the machine for all users, uninstall Merge before continuing.

For most situations, run the following command in a command prompt to install Araxis Merge:

winget install --id Araxis.Merge --scope user

This command will install the latest version of Araxis Merge that is available via WinGet for the currently logged-on user. For users whose Windows locale is set to Japanese, or whose Windows settings indicate a preference for Japanese over English, the Japanese version of Merge will be installed. The English version will generally be installed for other users.

Customized installation

The Merge installation can be tailored by providing options to the winget command. The general usage is:

winget install --id Araxis.Merge
    --scope {user|machine}
    [--locale {en-GB|ja-JP}]

  • --scope specifies whether Merge is installed only for the current user (--scope user), or for all users on the machine (--scope machine). Administrator privilege is required for --scope machine.

    Information Araxis recommends that the --scope parameter always be specified. Although it is technically optional, omitting --scope can lead to unexpected results. In particular, the scope of an existing installation may not be preserved when installing a newer version.

    Warning When upgrading an existing installation using winget install, always specify the same scope as the currently installed version of Merge. If you wish to change the scope from user to machine or vice versa, uninstall Merge before re-installing.

    Warning Upgrading using the winget upgrade --id Araxis.Merge command always results in Merge being installed with machine scope (that is, for all users). That command is not therefore recommended unless Merge is already installed with machine scope. Instead, install the new version using winget install, exactly as for a first-time installation.

    Warning At the time of writing, it appears necessary to run winget with elevated privileges (for example, from an Administrator command prompt) when --scope machine is specified. Doing so should not be necessary, as the installer should prompt for any elevated privilege required. However, due to an apparent bug, winget can instead fail with the error message, Failed to open the predefined source; please report to winget maintainers. An unexpected error occurred while executing the command: 0x80070005 : unknown error.

  • --locale overrides the default selection of the English or Japanese version of Merge. Specify --locale en-GB for the English version, or --locale ja-JP for the Japanese version.

For example, to install the Japanese version of Merge for all users on the machine, run the following command:

winget install --id Araxis.Merge --scope machine --locale ja-JP

Pre-populating the Windows Registry with a serial number and the licensed user

Rather than requiring each user to enter a serial number into Merge when it is run for the first time, it is possible to pre-populate the serial number and licensed user directly into the Windows Registry. This can be particularly useful when installing Merge on multiple machines. For more information, please see the instructions given for the Installing from an MSI (Windows Installer) Setup Package topic.