powertoys

Microsoft has quietly turned one of PowerToys’ smallest utilities — Advanced Paste — into a proving ground for on‑device AI, adding multi‑provider support and explicit local model paths so clipboard transforms can run on your PC (even on an NPU) instead of always phoning home. Background...

Microsoft has quietly turned one of Windows 11’s humblest utilities — the clipboard — into a full-featured, hybrid AI gateway: PowerToys’ Advanced Paste (now in PowerToys 0.96) can run transformations using local AI models hosted via Microsoft’s Foundry Local or the open-source Ollama runtime...

Microsoft’s PowerToys Advanced Paste has taken a decisive step toward local-first AI by adding on-device model support and multi-provider flexibility in the 0.96 update, turning a once-simple clipboard helper into a hybrid AI gateway that gives users faster transforms, reduced cloud costs, and...

Microsoft PowerToys’ Advanced Paste has quietly morphed from a handy clipboard tweak into a configurable, hybrid AI gateway for Windows 11—now explicit support for local model runtimes (Foundry Local and Ollama) and multiple cloud providers gives users and administrators unprecedented choice...

When small, focused utilities solve real problems better than heavyweight suites, they deserve more than a blog post — they deserve first-class treatment inside the OS itself; How-To Geek’s recent roundup arguing that three tiny open‑source apps — yt‑dlp, Microsoft PowerToys, and KSnip — should...

Microsoft’s PowerToys has quietly shipped one of the most consequential clipboard upgrades in years — and Apple’s Spotlight-based clipboard history in macOS Tahoe, while welcome, still falls short of the productivity and privacy controls that a native “Advanced Paste” experience could deliver...

The Windows right‑click menu is one of those small, ever‑present UI elements that quietly determines how much friction you feel every time you move a file, open an app, or share a screenshot — and with a few well‑chosen additions it can shave minutes (and hours) off your weekly workflow. A...

Microsoft PowerToys 0.96.0 pushes Advanced Paste from a niche convenience feature into a configurable hybrid AI gateway—adding support for multiple cloud providers and local model hosts—while polishing the Command Palette, extending PowerRename with photo metadata tokens, and addressing a long...

Microsoft heeft PowerToys 0.96.0 uitgebracht — een stevige onderhouds- en feature-update die vooral focust op AI‑integratie in Advanced Paste, aanzienlijke verbeteringen aan de Command Palette, uitgebreidere foto‑metadata‑ondersteuning in PowerRename, plus tientallen stabiliteits‑ en...

Microsoft’s PowerToys tops virtually every “must‑install” list for Windows 11 upgraders, and for good reason: it bundles a compact set of well‑engineered utilities — from advanced window tiling to on‑device OCR and a fast launcher — that deliver immediate productivity gains the moment you finish...

Microsoft’s little lighting trick for video calls has arrived on Windows fast — not as an OS feature but as a tidy, open-source utility that does exactly one thing well: turn your monitor into a ring light. What started as a macOS beta feature has already inspired a Windows version from a...

Apple’s small-but-clever “ring light” idea for video calls has already spawned an immediate Windows equivalent — and it may soon find a permanent home inside Microsoft’s PowerToys toolkit. Background / Overview Apple’s recent developer-beta UI experiment, broadly described as Edge Light, places...

Microsoft’s PowerToys plus a short list of six well-chosen free utilities can replace — and in many workflows outperform — expensive productivity suites, letting power users reclaim speed, flexibility, and control without recurring fees. The claim isn’t hype: a compact toolkit built from...

Microsoft’s PowerToys — long a secret weapon for Windows tinkerers — is the standout recommendation in a recent SlashGear roundup urging Windows 11 upgraders to install five free apps right away, and for good reason: PowerToys bundles a set of small, highly practical utilities that fix multiple...

Microsoft's PowerToys now ships a built‑in tool that makes multiple Windows PCs feel like one cohesive workspace — letting you move a single mouse cursor and keyboard focus between up to four machines, share the clipboard, and copy files across machines without buying a KVM box. Background /...

Microsoft’s PowerToys now delivers the one missing convenience many Windows 11 users have been asking for: an easy, officially supported way to automatically switch between Light Mode and Dark Mode based on schedule or local sunrise and sunset times. Background Windows 11 has offered Light and...

Every time I set up a new Windows 11 PC I install Microsoft PowerToys within the first half-hour — not because it bakes in cosmetic tweaks, but because it injects useful, system-level convenience that Windows still lacks. The PowerToys suite is acting as Microsoft’s public incubator for features...

October’s Windows 11 refreshes weren’t a single headline — they were a steady series of practical fixes and small UX wins that, taken together, make daily use noticeably better for many users while also underscoring Microsoft’s direction for the platform. Background / Overview Microsoft used...

Microsoft's PowerToys Command Palette is a quietly radical fix to a long-standing Windows problem: the default search and launcher experience is slow, noisy, and often gets in the way of productivity — and the case for folding Command Palette into Windows itself has never looked stronger...

I switched my primary development environment from Linux back to Windows — and the result was far less compromise and far more productivity than I expected, thanks to modern Windows tools like WSL2, Windows Terminal, PowerToys, and winget that finally blur the lines between the two ecosystems...