Can Winget provide more details when IsUpdateAvailable is false?

[Mmate99]

We are using Winget to provide application update support for our customers. Occasionally, Winget is unable to install an available update for certain applications — for example, when the installer type has changed.

In these cases, we want to report from our client application (running on the customer’s device) that an update exists but Winget cannot perform it, along with the specific reason why.

Currently, we use the Winget PowerShell module to gather information about updatable applications. Running a command like:

Get-WinGetPackage -Id {ID} | ConvertTo-Json > {file.json}

returns an IsUpdateAvailable flag, which indicates whether an update is available. However, when Winget cannot update an app, there’s no additional information explaining why the update cannot proceed.

Is there currently any way to retrieve more detailed information in these cases — such as an error code, message, or reason describing why Winget can’t update a specific package — so that we can report this more clearly to our customers?

[denelon]

This sounds like a feature request. WinGet "looks" at the installer type in the manifest for the package during the upgrade flow. That information isn't present on the system when Get-WinGetPackage is being invoked.

This seems like a good fit for something like a "-WhatIf" for the Upgrade cmdlet or maybe something else.