Microsoft PowerToys

Microsoft PowerToys

Type
Developer(s)
Operating system
Supported platforms
Initial release version	Tweak UI 1.1 (1.0) 0.11.0
Initial release date	1996-11-17 2019-12-03
Latest release version	0.82.0
Latest release date	2024-07-02
Latest pre-release version
Latest pre-release date
Other name(s)
License
Website	Official documentation GitHub
Succeeds
Successor

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities, extending functionality of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It contains tools which the user can enhance usage experience and maximizing the optimization of the operating system. Some of these tools have been written in the base of Windows internal tools, and some were created specially for this set.

History

PowerToys for Windows 95

First version of PowerToys was released for Windows 95 in November 17th, 1996. It's installer doesn't have GUI interface, and simply extracts tools into folder where it is located. It contains following tools:

• CabView, which opens cabinet files (.cab) as folders,
• CDAutoPlay, making AutoPlay workable on regular CDs,
• Clock, simply showing the time in round analog style,
• Command Prompt Here and Explore From here - shell shortcuts, simply opening Command Prompt and Explorer windows in specified path,
• Contents Menu, letting users to access folders and files from a context menu without having to open their folders;
• Desktop Menu, allowing users to open items on the desktop from a menu on the Taskbar,
• FindX, adding abilities to advanced search,
• FlexiCD - plays audio CD right on the Taskbar,
• Send to X, sending selected file(s) into specified location,
• Shortcut Target Menu - creates shortcuts to the target,
• Telephony Location Selector allowed user to change his dialing location from the Taskbar,
• Tweak UI - advanced customization tool, which lets to modify shell more deeply, such as desktop view, icons showcase and etc,
• Xmouse, which switches active window to cursor's current placed window without clicking to top bar.

As advanced add-on, Microsoft also released with this version special Windows 95 Kernel Toys, which added customization into kernel of operating system. KernelToys was fully written by Raymond Chen, except for Time Zone Editor, which is backported from Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit. This kit includes:

• MS-DOS Mode Configuration Wizard Customization Tool, adding ability to modify CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files,
• Keyboard Remap, changing keyboard keys and hotkeys into custom commands,
• Logo Key Control, which configured MS-DOS games so that Windows would ignore the ⊞ Win key while games were running,
• Conventional Memory Tracker - tracks memory usage and allocation on Windows and breaking down by virtual device drivers,
• Windows Process Watcher, monitoring CPU resources allocated to programs,
• Time Zone Editor, which edits Date/Time applet zone entries.

PowerToys for Windows XP

Second edition of PowerToys was released for Windows XP in November 11th, 2005. There are no unified installer, and every tool comes with it's own installer instead. Some of these tools cannot be installed on Windows Server 2003 and onwards, and only minority of them can be installed there, with message that tool requires Windows XP. In difference of extending tools from Windows 95, this version includes entirely new toolkit except for several tools, where are included:

• Alt-Tab Replacement Task Switcher, which replace the simpler Alt-Tab switcher with a more visual one, which shows live window previews like on Windows Vista and newer,
• Background Switcher, which periodically switches desktop background like a slideshow,
• CD Slide Show Generator, generating slideshow from photos placed in CD drive,
• ClearType Tuner, for customizing ClearType settings to make read text easier on the screen,
• Color Control Panel Applet, which lets to modify color settings in OS, color profile associations, view detailed properties for color profiles (including a 3D rendering of the color space gamut),
• HTML Slide Show Wizard, generating HTML show presentation,
• Image Resizer, resizing multiple images right from Explorer,
• Internet Explorer Find Bar, for searching right from Internet Explorer,
• ISO Image Burner, to burn any ISO file natively in Windows,
• Power Calculator, extending native Calculator abilities: it adds mathematical visualizer showing them on coordinate plane, convert units of measurements, draw a Cartesian polar, calculate up to 500 precision levels beyond the decimal point with support of complex numbers and more,
• RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer, imaging utilities for RAW images into Explorer,
• Shell Audio Player, an Windows Media Player applet, which allowed to place mini player into the Taskbar,
• Super-Fast User Switcher, allowing to fast switch between users with ⊞ Win+Q key combination,
• SyncToy, for synchronizing multiple files and folders between each other clients,
• Taskbar Magnifier, magnifying taskbar parts,
• Virtual Desktop Manager, which allows to switch between multiple virtual desktops, providing functionality from Windows Longhorn,
• Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel, providing ability to mount any ISO file into Windows,
• Webcam Timershot, which takes screenshots from webcam input at specified intervals.

Some tools were continued from Windows 95 version: Tweak UI received more advanced settings and have been released as a separate executable file. Before that, Tweak UI was a Control Panel applet, with separate DLL file. Older version of Tweak UI is available at Windows XP SP1 source code, and can be compiled on Server 2003 environment. Command Prompt Here also inherited from previous pack, and was just adapted for Windows XP.

PowerToys for Windows 10 and later

After a long time, in May 8th, 2019, Microsoft announced that PowerToys will become an open-source, and made it's repository available on GitHub. Introduced an unified installer with GUI, with interface of Microsoft Visual C++ redistributive installers. A new tools were introduced, which include:

• Always On Top, pinning specified window at top of any application and adding huge border on it,
• Color Picker, which picks color from screen part where cursor was clicked. It can also convert selected colors to hex, RGB, CMYK, HSL and HSV types,
• FancyZones, creating windows different layouts,
• File Locksmith, which adds ability to check files used by other processes,
• Host File Editor, editing hosts file, located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc,
• Keyboard Manager, which was partially backported from Windows 95 KernelToys and continued to change keyboard keys and hotkeys,
• Mouse utilities, purposed for work with mouse cursors: it includes tools for highlighting cursor when dragging, showing coordinates in screen, clicks indicator and more,
• Mouse Without Borders, allowing to move mouse across multiple devices,
• Paste as Plain Text, extending pasting of text without additional styles,
• PowerRename, which allows to rename multiple files at different formats using search and regular expressions,
• PowerToys Awake, making computer always working and disabling sleep abilities,
• PowerToys Run, which adds spotlight-like search bar to run programs,
• Preview Panes for File Explorer, which include SVG, Markdown, PDF, source code previews on the right pane,
• Quick Accent, adding the ability to type accented characters in an alternative way,
• Registry Preview, which can view .reg files and manage them before merging them into Registry,
• Screen Ruler, for adding rulers in the screen for advanced measurements,
• Shortcut Guide, showing all available Windows shortcuts and hotkeys,
• Text Extractor, which can fetch text from all surfaces of screen,
• Video Conference Mute, for disabling audio/video output on conferences and calls.

Integrations

By time, some of tools initially implemented in PowerToys were backported into Windows and became as native: thus, in Windows Vista, the Send to X functionality was turned natively and made available from context menu and presumably, SyncToy was the base for Windows Meeting, Windows 8 preliminary build backported ISO mounting feature, and even Windows 11 build 26058 added functionality of mouse cursor coordinate showcase.