Don't forget SysInternals for the more technical tasks/tools.

If only Microsoft could make it part of Windows by default instead of those lucky users who discover what PowerToys needing to submit their request to corporate IT and enduring either incredulity or dumb jokes about the naming.

Gatekeeping as "power user features" is silly, it's 2025 and many of these features have been built-in on other operating systems for a decade or more.

For that, use ExplorerPatcher: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

They didn't remove it. The new taskbar and start menu were written for Windows 10x (a sandboxed version of windows meant for dual screen devices) when that was canceled Microsoft bolted them on top of Windows 10 added arbitrary hardware restrictions and released as Windows 11

Agreed. Possibly controversial opinion but in my mind, on widescreen displays, it makes good sense to have the taskbar to the left or right.

Windhawk has a plug-in to fix this I'm pretty sure.

Are you me? Exact same! The problem with dual monitors is either you're sat in front of the gap, or you need to pivot. This way you get a 'normal' monitor and a portrait section to the side, much better.

I have a pretty odd grid setup myself for a 55" TV monitor. Best part is holding shift and being able to snap a window to multiple zones. Let's me have a grid with tons of smaller zones that are useful for various apps when I need tiny windows and large ones when I don't.

I've found splitting up my ultrawide into 6x2 cells, then you can use Ctrl+Shift to select every cell your mouse enters additively. I've wanted something like this for linux for a long time but haven't found anything.

I set up three zones and a huge highlight distance between them. I can drag a window between zones and it resizes to those two zones combined. This way I can have three 1:1:1 windows or two 2:1 or 1:2 windows with the same single layout!

I use 12 columns so I can still do this 1/3 - 2/3 split, but other proportions as well. I tend to have a chat app on the left quarter, browser in the middle half, and a music app on the right quarter. Lots more freedom than only two zones!

I think it got revived a few years ago, so not always alive and kicking.

I wrote https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse a while back with the “grid mode” that moves the mouse cursor by bisecting the screen coordinate incrementally.

I tried it, but I prefer https://keypirinha.com

I use Raycast on MacOS, a Windows version is coming: https://www.raycast.com/windows

Command Palette is the Mac/Linux style app picker that's nice and bloated and does what hitting the Windows key and Start Menu search should've done in 98SE. I've got it bound to Win+Shift+Space but it's laggy and dumb enough (doesn't learn what I'm always searching for and running??) to where I don't bother. My money's still on it eventually replacing the Windows key binding.

It’s the best tool in the suite and I’d say Microsoft take it out and make it a single application sooner or later.

> PowerToys Awake - keep a computer awake without having to manage its power & sleep settings

I prefer another application called Caffeine [1], which also prevents Windows from automatically locking and keeps it such that the status on some applications doesn’t automatically change to “Away” after sometime. For some reason I couldn’t get PowerToys Awake to do this. Some Windows policies are controlled by the company I work at. But I use this only when I’m in a secure location where I’m the only person around or I remember (from muscle memory) to hit Windows L to lock the system when I step away.

[1]: https://zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/

About PowerToys’ Text Extractor, there’s equivalent functionality in Windows now, from [1]:

It's recommended to use the Snipping Tool instead of the Text Extractor for capturing screenshots.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/text-ext...

I love Mouse Without Borders, just setup the code between machines and your mouse goes there (and keyboard input) and even simple file sharing.

I think PowerToys are sort of a testing/QA playground. Features from PowerToys are sometimes adopted into Windows.

"power" as in Power-user... A lot of power user tools aren't typically installed in consumer oriented OSes, see MacOS and Windows.

Beyond this, PowerToys can take third party contributions and evolve far faster/easier than Windows official release software.

Including it in the OS is a much bigger support commitment.

Every thread about windows has everyone moaning about bloat. Some tools from the Powertoys Suite are usable, but the whole thing is incredibly clunky and slow even compared to the React native infested Windows 11

They would have to support it for 20 years or more.

I've wondered that same thing for the last 30 years.

They're really good at keeping out functional bloat, not so much with ad and telemetry bloat.

That was added to base Windows 11 3 years ago

I’ve been a user of Everything along with Keypirinha for a long time. The latter is very convenient for calculations, as a launcher, for currency conversions, and more. I even disabled Windows Search because it’s slow and not as good as Everything.

PowerToys has and Everything plugin

There have been various apps to do this since forever, but still, none are native to Windows.