powertoys

I installed Microsoft PowerToys on my main Windows 11 PC and three small utilities—FancyZones, Peek, and Advanced Paste—immediately removed a disproportionate amount of daily friction: custom window layouts that behaved how I wanted, a fast file preview without opening heavyweight apps, and...

PowerToys Workspaces delivers on a simple but powerful promise: save an entire desktop state — the apps you use, the order you open them in, and where each window sits — then restore that state with a single click or shortcut. For anyone who docks and undocks a laptop, juggles multiple monitors...

Microsoft has quietly shipped PowerToys v0.96.1 — a compact, stability-focused patch that doesn’t introduce new modules but does deliver a welcome fix for Windows 10 users and a handful of targeted repairs across the suite’s AI and utility components. Background PowerToys has evolved from a...

Microsoft has quietly issued a small but meaningful patch — PowerToys version 0.96.1 — that restores the beloved Image Resizer to Windows 10 users and irons out several critical stability and AI-integration wrinkles introduced in the preceding 0.96 milestone. Background / Overview PowerToys has...

Microsoft has quietly issued a small but meaningful patch to PowerToys — moving the app from 0.96.0 to v0.96.1 — that primarily restores a broken shell integration on Windows 10 and applies a handful of targeted fixes to Advanced Paste, Foundry Local model support, and the Awake utility. The...

Microsoft’s PowerToys team has quietly teased what may be the most practical single addition to the suite in years: a native monitor-control utility — shown as PowerDisplay (also referred to in community threads as Power Monitor) — that promises per‑monitor brightness, contrast, color...

Microsoft’s PowerToys is preparing what may be the most practical single addition to the suite in years: a native monitor-control module (variously called PowerDisplay or Power Monitor) that promises per‑monitor brightness, contrast, color‑temperature and even volume controls from a system‑tray...

Microsoft’s PowerToys appears poised to solve one of the most stubborn annoyances of multi‑monitor life: the need to squint behind your display and jab tiny OSD buttons just to dim a monitor, change color temperature, or lower built‑in speaker volume. A new PowerToys module — circulating under...

Microsoft shipped what it calls a small bug-fix update to PowerToys — identified in some reports as 0.96.1 — that aims to restore a previously broken module on Windows 10 and address a handful of regressions in Awake and Advanced Paste, while leaving the larger 0.96 feature set intact. The...

Resizing a photo in Windows’ built‑in Photos app is a two‑click habit once you know where the controls live — and for many everyday tasks (email attachments, blog images, quick social posts) Photos now covers everything you need without installing extra software. This deep dive explains the...

Microsoft’s PowerToys appears to be preparing a native monitor-control module that puts common external-display settings — brightness, contrast, color temperature and even speaker volume — directly inside PowerToys’ settings and flyouts, potentially ending the need to hunt through clumsy...

I used to disable nearly every program that tries to launch with Windows, but two third‑party tools quietly earned permanent spots in my startup list because they solve real pain points the moment the desktop appears: DisplayFusion for multi‑monitor reliability and PowerToys for a grab‑bag of...

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...