Items tagged with powertoys
It has been a year since PowerToys, a 90s era Windows 95 (and later, Windows XP) utility, made a triumphant return to Windows 10. While not yet a fully polished release, Microsoft continues to tweak the utility on GitHub, the open source hosting platform it purchased for $7.5 billion in 2018, and has released a new version with a couple of neat upgrades attached. The latest release is version 0.18.0. Microsoft said its goal with this new build was to deliver three things: PowerToys Run, Keyboard Manager, and migrating to the new settings system. Microsoft also says this is the first release where it is testing out an auto-updating system, and it will be interesting to see how that works out....
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Microsoft's PowerToys utilities were oft-used by enthusiasts with Windows 9x operating systems on up through Window XP, but took a long hiatus starting with the release of Windows Vista. Around this time last year, Microsoft announced that PowerToys would be returning as a set of utilities for Windows 10, and we're now up to v.0.17.0. With this latest release, you'll no longer need to manually seek out and download a new update when Microsoft posts it to GitHub. Instead, PowerToys v.0.17.0 adds an automatic updating mechanism which makes this process a breeze. While the functionality is currently in place, you won't be able to actually take advantage of it until v.0.18.0 is released...
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At the risk of burying the lede (just a tad), does anybody remember those old Power Wheels commercials? They went "Pow-pow Power Wheels, pow-pow Power Wheels, Power Wheels power makes it go!" It's what comes to mind whenever I see an update for Microsoft's PowerToys utility for Windows 10, and I just don't want to be the only one with the Power Wheels jingle stuck in my head. Back to the topic at hand, what were we talking about? Ah yes, PowerToys. After conducting a survey on what third-party tools developers and "some seasoned users" turn to, Microsoft discovered a large number of them turn to outside programs to remap the keys on their keyboard. And so the feature appears to be headed to the...
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Microsoft released its first PowerToys for Windows 10 last year, and like with previous Windows operating systems, they are individual utilities aimed at power users. This time around, there's a new utility on the way called PowerLauncher. PowerLauncher is described as a quick app launcher that is meant to supplant using commands like Win+R, Win+S or the Windows search bar. There are also other third-party alternatives that provide similar functionality like Launchy and Executor. Microsoft admittedly calls its built-in search function slow -- at least compared to the run prompt -- and that is often slow to launch a chosen app. That's where PowerLauncher steps in. Users...
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Microsoft has succeeded in its goal of releasing a version of PowerToys for Windows 10 before the summer season comes to an official end. First announced a few months ago, PowerToys for Windows 10 is a throwback to the popular utility that power users installed way back in the day on Windows 95, to gain access to advanced features and functionality. If your computing days date back to the Windows 95 era, you may remember PowerToys, essentially a set of freely available utilities for enthusiasts that were also made available in Windows XP. It included over a dozen tools. One of the more widely used ones was TweakUI, which made it easier to dig deeper into Windows and adjust settings that might...
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Few things rarely go out of style for good. The best stuff has a way of coming back into view, like vinyl. This also applies to computers, apparently. No, the floppy disk is not making a glorious comeback, but something that dates all the way back to Windows 95 is—it's called PowerToys, and it is being rebooted for the modern era. PowerToys was a set of freely available utilities designed for power users, which Microsoft first developed for Windows 95, and later Windows XP. it included over a dozen tools. One of the more widely used among them was TweakUI. This made it easy for users to dig deeper into Windows and play with its fine grain controls without having to manually alter the system...
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