Newsletter Archives

• PowerToys to manage your window layouts

  Posted on January 13, 2025 at 02:42 CST by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  Get document and app windows where you want them more easily — with some help from Microsoft’s free utilities.

  Some of the utilities in PowerToys are powerful tools you might need only once every few years, but there’s one I use dozens of times a day because it’s so useful. You might already be using a version of it that’s built into Windows 11!

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.02.0, 2025-01-13).

  Windows 11 FancyZones, Metro Apps, Newsletters, PowerToys, Snap Layouts, Windows 8, Workspaces

• Make the most of PowerToys Run

  Posted on November 18, 2024 at 02:44 CST by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  For a faster search — or a replacement for the Windows Start and Search interface — this powerful little search box gives you lots of options.

  Although launching applications from the Start menu or taskbar is the easiest way to do it, sometimes you want the extra control that using the name of a program gives you — such as being able to add command switches to open Word in safe mode (winword.exe /safe) or designating an Excel spreadsheet as read-only (excel.exe /r “c:\downloads\workbook.xlsx”).

  The Windows Run command window (WinKey+R) is the quick way to do that, but the PowerToys Run utility is a much more powerful method, combining search and navigation.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.47.0, 2024-11-18).

  Windows 11 Newsletters, PowerToys, PowerToys Run

• Managing your hardware with PowerToys

  Posted on October 21, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.43 • 2024-10-21

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  Find your mouse pointer, customize your keyboard layout, and shift your focus between multiple computers.

  As screens get bigger and interfaces get busier, spotting your mouse pointer on the screen has gotten trickier. Instead of waggling your mouse or cranking up the cursor size so that it hides what you’re trying to click on when you do find it, you could turn on what used to be called “mouse sonar.” From Windows XP on, there’s been an option in the control panel to show a highlighted ring around the mouse pointer when you press and hold the Ctrl key, just like a target in a submarine’s periscope.

  These days, that feature is actually part of the first PowerToy I’ll discuss, but it now comes with several other helpful options.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.43.0, 2024-10-21).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Windows 11 Keyboard Manager, Mouse Utilities, Mouse without Borders, Newsletters, PowerToys, Video Conference Mute, Windows 11

• The best PowerToys for working with text and files

  Posted on September 30, 2024 at 02:43 CDT by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  A lot of the handy little extras in Microsoft PowerToys make life easier for managing files and coaxing text into the format you want.

  The clipboard for copying and pasting between applications has been around as long as Windows with few improvements. The basic clipboard manager introduced in Windows 10 (the October 2018 update) has far fewer features than third-party tools like 1Clipboard or (my favorite) ClipMate, which can strip complex formatting and special characters, change case, or combine multiple clips.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.40.0, 2024-09-30).

  Windows 11 Advanced Paste, File Explorer add-ons, File Locksmith, Newsletters, Peek, PowerRename, PowerToys, Quick Accent, Text Extractor, Windows

• Microsoft PowerToys aren’t just for power users

  Posted on July 29, 2024 at 02:43 CDT by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  Microsoft keeps adding useful tools to the free PowerToys set and improving what’s already there.

  Back in the Windows 95 days, system tweaking and cleaning utilities were so common — and so likely to change system settings that stopped Windows features from working properly — that the Windows shell and kernel teams came out with their own tools, known as PowerToys.

  These were refreshed for Windows XP. A few other Microsoft teams joined in. Engineers on the OneNote development team created multiple power toys, including one that eventually became the Onetastic add-on.

  There were so many changes in Windows Vista and Windows 7 that many PowerToys stopped working. Microsoft didn’t update them. And some just turned into Windows features. It wasn’t until 2019 that PowerToys returned for Windows 10, and with a slightly different approach.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.31.0, 2024-07-29).

  Windows 11 Always On Top, Awake, Color picker, Command Not Found, Crop and Lock, FancyZones, File Locksmith, Hosts File Editor, Image Resizer, Mouse Crosshairs, Mouse without Borders, Newsletters, PowerToys, PowerToys Run, Screen Ruler, Shortcut Guide

• How to choose and use the best PowerToys for Windows 10/11

  Posted on January 30, 2023 at 02:44 CST by Lance Whitney • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS

  

  By Lance Whitney

  Microsoft packs a lot of cool tools into its free PowerToys offering. Here are some of the best.

  Microsoft’s latest incarnation of PowerToys has been around for a few years. Geared for Windows 10 and 11, PowerToys aims to add more features and flexibility to Windows.

  But now there are more than 15 individual tools in PowerToys. How do you know which ones are worth trying? Let’s check out what I think are the best of the bunch.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.05.0, 2023-01-30).

  Windows Newsletters, PowerToys, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11

• Windows PowerToys — returns!

  Posted on September 13, 2020 at 21:10 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums
  

  UTILITIES

  By Nathan Segal

  When it comes to utilities for Windows, most of us are conditioned to look either inside the OS or beyond Microsoft

  We forget that the folks in Redmond offer a wide variety of accessory tools and utilities online. When was the last time you visited Sysinternals, home of the classic Sysmon and Process Explorer?

  Another example is Microsoft PowerToys (GitHub page), which has been resurrected as an open-source app for Windows 10. This collection of useful tools is designed primarily for power users, but the average Windows jockey might want to look at them, too.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.36.0 (2020-09-14).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Color picker, Keyboard remapping, Power-user apps, PowerToys, Windows shortcuts

• Windows (er, Microsoft) PowerToys 0.15 hits

  Posted on March 3, 2020 at 13:28 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Looks like MS has squashed a whole lotta bugs in the previous version. There’s a description here:

  Current PowerToy Utilities

  FancyZones

  FancyZones – FancyZones is a window manager that makes it easy to create complex window layouts and quickly position windows into those layouts.

  Shortcut

  Windows key shortcut guide – The shortcut guide appears when a user holds the Windows key down for more than one second and shows the available shortcuts for the current state of the desktop.

  PowerRename

  PowerRename – PowerRename is a Windows Shell Extension for advanced bulk renaming using search and replace or regular expressions. PowerRename allows simple search and replace or more advanced regular expression matching. While you type in the search and replace input fields, the preview area will show what the items will be renamed to. PowerRename then calls into the Windows Explorer file operations engine to perform the rename. This has the benefit of allowing the rename operation to be undone after PowerRename exits.

  If that looks like the old version, yeah, it does to me, too. But this one “Resolved almost 100 issues.”

  I was a great believer in the XP PowerToys. Win10, not so much. If you’re using any of them, tell me what you think.

  Windows 10 PowerToys
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