

A look at the Releases page shows eight releases since early June, or about two per month. Speaking of updates, Rutkas and his programmers are working hard to push frequent updates to PowerToys. Now, it simply asks for permission to restart the Windows Explorer (process name: explorer.exe) as it finishes up updating or installing itself. NET DLLs into PowerToys.īut as of release v0.20.1, PowerToys handles all open applications without issue. Via Twitter, one of team leader Clint Rutkas’ associates informed me this was because of the program’s inclusion of the Core. Versions 0.18.2 and earlier would require users to jump into Task Manager and terminate various processes and applications before its installation could complete. Over the past few months, PowerToys has really cleaned up its installation and update capabilities. (Make sure not to grab an experimental pre-release.) To get started, go to the PowerToys site on GitHub and download the latest release you’ll find it under “Releases” near the top right of the home page, or visit the Releases page directly. What FancyZones does is allow you to select from a list of templates of predefined zones, or you can create your own.Despite its preview status, however, the new PowerToys collection is well worth a look. When you Snap a window to the side or corner of the screen, what you’re doing is telling the window to shrink (or expand) to a predefined region of the screen. FancyZones includes Snap templates, or you can create your own If, after you’ve triggered an action, you still hold down the Windows key, those shortcuts will adjust to reflect what you’re seeing.

The implication is that Shortcut Guide is somewhat context-aware, and will display what action those shortcuts will take given the current state of the desktop and active window. The Shortcut Guide is basically a cheat sheet to what’s going on in your Windows screen. With the Shortcut guide enabled, depressing the Windows key for more than a second will turn on the available Windows shortcuts for what you’re currently seeing on your screen. You don’t even need to be on a Windows 10 Insider build to get it-this is open to anyone. You’ll need to download the PowerToys installer, then select which apps you’ll want to install. There are two initial PowerToys apps: a Shortcut Guide, and the FancyZones app. Now, PowerToys is back, and each app even has the code available on GitHub for suggested modifications.


Others, like SyncToy’s tool for syncing folders, emerged as PowerToys for Windows XP and Vista. Microsoft’s PowerToys were a beloved staple of the Windows 95 era, allowing users to add vetted extensions to the basic operating system.
