Onboard
A simple command line utility to spin up a newly formatted Windows computer. This utility depends on Windows PowerShell and Chocolatey.
Quick Setup
Download onboard.ps1.
The first step to take is to make sure that Windows PowerShell is installed. If opening the start menu and typing "powershell" doesn't yield results, Windows PowerShell is not installed. This should NOT be the case on Windows 7 or higher.
The next step is going to require PowerShell to be run as Administrator.
Next, the execution policy is going to have to be set. This can be done using the command Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned. This tells PowerShell to execute scripts written on the computer.
Since onbard is not written on the computer, running onbaord will require right clicking on onboard.ps1, clicking on Properties, and then unblocking the script. Another way to achieve this is to run Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted which will allow all scripts after confirming execution.
Note: The value of the PowerShell execution policy can be checked at any time using the command Get-ExecutionPolicy.
Running
This requires PowerShell to be run as Administrator.
Once PowerShell is configured to play nicely, run path\to\onboard.ps1. If you are in the directory that onboard.ps1 lives in, execute .\onboard.ps1 instead.
Once run, the script will ask whether to install each app, enabling selective installation.
Once the computer has been onboarded, PowerShell can be told to block all execution again using the command Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted.
Chocolatey
This wonderful utility emulates the yum or apt-get utilities from the linux world. A simple choco install [app name] command from the command prompt will search the chocolatey packages repository and silently install the application. The chocolatey wiki has a lot of great information about everything that this tool is capable of.
The onboard script will install chocolatey on your computer. The chcolatey install command is used to install all the apps selected during the questioning. While it is a good idea to keep this utility around, if you wish to uninstall chocolatey, the instructions can be found here.