PowerToys/README.md

Microsoft PowerToys

Downloads & Release notes | Contributing to PowerToys | What's Happening | Roadmap

Build status

Architecture	Master	Stable	Installer
x64

About

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows 10 experience for greater productivity. For more info on PowerToys overviews and guides, or any other tools and resources for Windows development environments, head over to docs.microsoft.com!

	Current utilities:
Awake	Color Picker	FancyZones
File Explorer Add-ons	Image Resizer	Keyboard Manager
PowerRename	PowerToys Run	Shortcut Guide
Video Conference Mute (Experimental)

Installing and running Microsoft PowerToys

Requirements

• Windows 10 v1903 (build 18362) or newer.
  • ⚠️ PowerToys (v0.37.0 and newer) requires Windows 10 v1903 (18362) or newer.
• Have .NET Core 3.1.15 Desktop Runtime. The installer should handle this but we want to directly make people aware.

Via GitHub with EXE [Recommended]

Stable version

Install from the Microsoft PowerToys GitHub releases page. Click on Assets to show the files available in the release and then click on PowerToysSetup-0.41.2-x64.exe to download the PowerToys installer.

This is our preferred method.

Experimental version

To install the Video Conference mute, please use the v0.36 experimental version of PowerToys to try out this version. It includes all improvements from v0.35 in addition to the Video conference utility. Click on Assets to show the files available in the release and then download the .exe installer.

Via WinGet (Preview)

Download PowerToys from WinGet. To install PowerToys, run the following command from the command line / PowerShell:

WinGet install powertoys

Other install methods

There are community driven install methods such as Chocolatey and Scoop. If these are your preferred install solutions, this will have the install instructions.

Processor support

We currently support the matrix below.

x64	x86	ARM64
Supported	Issue #602	Issue #490

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions of all types. Help spec'ing, design, documentation, finding bugs are ways everyone can help on top of coding features / bug fixes. We are excited to work with the power user community to build a set of tools for helping you get the most out of Windows.

We ask that before you start work on a feature that you would like to contribute, please read our Contributor's Guide. We will be happy to work with you to figure out the best approach, provide guidance and mentorship throughout feature development, and help avoid any wasted or duplicate effort.

Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution.

For guidance on developing for PowerToys, please read the developer docs for a detailed breakdown. This includes how to setup your computer to compile.

What's Happening

PowerToys Roadmap

Our prioritized roadmap of features and utilities that the core team is focusing on.

0.41 - June 2021 Update

Our goals for v0.39 release cycle and v0.41 release cycle cycle included stability updates and optimizations, general bug fixes, accessibility improvements, and supporting the integration of the new community led project, Awake, which allows Power-Users to now keep their computer awake on demand!

Highlights from v0.39 / v0.41

The PowerToys team delayed our 0.39 release. We decided that we wanted to do more for the next release of PowerToys, so this longer time allowed us to get in more amazing pull requests by you, the community, to add / improve functionality which we merged into 0.41.

General

• New Awake utility added! Power-Users can now keep their computer awake on-demand without having to manage its power settings. A huge thank you to @dend for driving the development of this feature. Check out complete guidance and getting started info on Microsoft Docs
• Improved auto-update experience in PowerToys Settings
• Improved settings layout for radio button groups. Updated images and menu for OOBE. Thanks @niels9001!
• Updated general bug report information.

Color Picker

• New fix to prevent the creation of duplicate colors in the selection history. Thanks @DoctorNefario!
• Fixed OOBE hotkey description. Thanks @coc0a!
• Improved editor UX to better support keyboard navigation. Thanks @niels9001!
• Updated Color Picker GIF for OOBE. Thanks @niels9001!

FancyZones

• Full keyboard support added for the canvas editor’s main window and context. Thanks @niels9001!
  • Use Arrows to move a zone by 10 pixels or Ctrl + Arrows to move the zone by 1 pixel
  • Shift + Arrows to resize a zone by 10 pixels (5 per edge), Ctrl + Shift + Arrows to resize a zone by 2 pixels (1 per edge)
  • Ctrl + Tab to switch between the editor and dialog
• New support for faster layout selection by double clicking a desired layout from the editor to automatically apply it and dismiss the editor.
• New zone activation behavior allows users to snap a window to the zone who's center is closest to the cursor. Thanks @ulazy1!
• Added process icon for FancyZones.
• Fixed issue with zoning minimized windows.
• Fixed a bunch of accessibility bugs
• Now an independent exe, detached from the runner process.

Image Resizer

• Fixed bug where specifying a width but no height generated a 1x1 px image instead of auto-adjusting the height. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

PowerToys Run

• Multiple crashing bugs resolved.
• New Unit Converter plugin! Activate in the query prompt with the default activation phrase %%. Ex: %% 10 ft in m. Thanks @jsoref and @ThiefZero!
• New Windows Settings plugin! Search for specific Windows settings from PowerToys Run by utilizing the default activation phrase $ followed by the desired setting. Ex: $ Add/Remove Programs To list all settings of an area category, type : after the category name. Ex: $ Device:. Thanks @TobiasSekan and @htcfreek.
• Updated the URL plugin to enable quickly launching the default browser with the action keyword, which defaults to //.
• Added remainder/modulo support for Calculator plugin via % operator.
• Faster launching from improved Win32 program indexing. Thanks @royvou!
• Search text results now highlight matched characters from input. Thanks @niels9001!

Shortcut Guide

• Now an independent exe, detached from the runner process.
• Removed support for long Win press to activate Shortcut Guide. Users can now Win + ? to launch and new customization settings added for users to define their own shortcut.

Community contributions

We'd like to directly mention (in alphabetical order) for their continued community support this month and helping directly make PowerToys a better piece of software.

@Aaron-Junker, @coc0a, @davidegiacometti, @dend, @DoctorNefario, @dogancelik, @htcfreek, @itsme-alan, @Jay-o-Way, @djsoref, @niels9001, @nitroin, @ricardosantos9521, @ThiefZero, @TobiasSekan, and @ulazy1

What is being planned for v0.43

For v0.43, we are planning to work on:

• Stability and bug fixes
• Installer improvements

PowerToys Community

The PowerToys team is extremely grateful to have the support of an amazing active community. The work you do is incredibly important. PowerToys wouldn’t be nearly what it is today without your help filing bugs, updating documentation, guiding the design, or writing features. We want to say thank you and take time to recognize your work.

Code of Conduct

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct.

Privacy Statement

The application logs basic telemetry. Our Telemetry Data page (Coming Soon) has the trends from the telemetry. Please read the Microsoft privacy statement for more information.