Newsletter Archives

• The best PowerToys for working with text and files

  Posted on September 30, 2024 at 02:43 CDT by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  A lot of the handy little extras in Microsoft PowerToys make life easier for managing files and coaxing text into the format you want.

  The clipboard for copying and pasting between applications has been around as long as Windows with few improvements. The basic clipboard manager introduced in Windows 10 (the October 2018 update) has far fewer features than third-party tools like 1Clipboard or (my favorite) ClipMate, which can strip complex formatting and special characters, change case, or combine multiple clips.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.40.0, 2024-09-30).

  Windows 11 Advanced Paste, File Explorer add-ons, File Locksmith, Newsletters, Peek, PowerRename, PowerToys, Quick Accent, Text Extractor, Windows

• Microsoft PowerToys aren’t just for power users

  Posted on July 29, 2024 at 02:43 CDT by Mary Branscombe • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Mary Branscombe

  Microsoft keeps adding useful tools to the free PowerToys set and improving what’s already there.

  Back in the Windows 95 days, system tweaking and cleaning utilities were so common — and so likely to change system settings that stopped Windows features from working properly — that the Windows shell and kernel teams came out with their own tools, known as PowerToys.

  These were refreshed for Windows XP. A few other Microsoft teams joined in. Engineers on the OneNote development team created multiple power toys, including one that eventually became the Onetastic add-on.

  There were so many changes in Windows Vista and Windows 7 that many PowerToys stopped working. Microsoft didn’t update them. And some just turned into Windows features. It wasn’t until 2019 that PowerToys returned for Windows 10, and with a slightly different approach.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.31.0, 2024-07-29).

  Windows 11 Always On Top, Awake, Color picker, Command Not Found, Crop and Lock, FancyZones, File Locksmith, Hosts File Editor, Image Resizer, Mouse Crosshairs, Mouse without Borders, Newsletters, PowerToys, PowerToys Run, Screen Ruler, Shortcut Guide