Windows PowerToys Update Finally Adds This Cool Trick You've Been Wanting

There's little argument that although its inner workings are quite solid and speedy, Windows 11's UX choices are often best described as schizophrenic. One day Microsoft adds a useful feature, only to add yet another Edge-begging pop-up the next. Thankfully, some teams in the company are much more focused, like the folks working on the PowerToys utility.

PowerToys was already handy at launch, but it's grown in utility exponentially in the past few years with continued development. Its latest upgrade to version 0.94, released today, adds a search function for PowerToys' settings -- a very welcome addition, given how many handy features the utility now contains. This revision also fixes a long-standing annoyance: keyboard shortcuts getting doubled up between Windows features and PowerToys. There's now a handy UI that shows you shortcut conflicts with an option to immediately edit them.


In a blog post, the PowerToys team has also promised that the 0.95 release will come with a handy feature that's a glaring omissions from base Windows 11: automatic switching of light and dark theme according to a schedule, similar to many phones nowadays. The devs also promised a new UI for the keyboard remapping utility, Keyboard Manager.

PowerToys is, quite frankly, one of the most slept-on pieces of software out there. It's packed to the brim with features that really should have been part of Windows and enabled by default in the first place. For example, the Run utility is worth its bytes in gold alone, because you can bring up a prompt that unifies, among many other things, the command line, the Start menu, calculator, and file and window search. It's also extensible, to boot.

Additional features include time- and frustration-saving goodies like an editor for the HOSTS file, a text Registry Editor with a preview, and File Locksmith to show you which processes are using a file when you can't delete it. Check out the full list of features here, and know that we can't recommend the utility enough.