With the May Windows 10 update will come six new Power Toys. Here’s what they are, what they’re for and how they work
Sometimes they come back, and they come back richer than before. This is the case of the Windows Power Toys, a collection of utilities dedicated to the most experienced and crafty users that Microsoft launched at the time of Windows 95 but then did not develop for a long time, due to the poor success achieved.
Now the Power Toys are back, they are available as early as September 2019, and in May they will be enriched with a new feature that looks a lot like Apple’s Spotlight app, through which users can search for installed applications by simply typing their name in a search bar. This new feature will replace, but only on Windows 10 PCs on which Power Toys are installed, the old (and unchanged for about a decade) “Run” command window. Like the old command, the Spotlight-style app will also be able to be invoked via the Win+R key combination.
Windows Power Toys: what they are
In addition to the new app coming in May with the Windows 10 update, users can already download and install the current version of Power Toys, which currently include six features: FancyZones, File Explorer, Image Resizer, PowerRename, Shortcut Guide and Window Walker.
FancyZones is used to divide the screen into separate portions and to make sure, by holding down the Shift key while dragging a window, that it docks to a certain area. File Explorer is an extension of File Explorer that allows us to preview certain types of files directly in the app window. Image Resizer, on the other hand, is used to resize entire sets of images: just select them all in File Explorer and then press the right mouse button to access the resize options. PowerRename does more or less the same thing, but in renaming series of files. Shortcut Guide, on the other hand, serves to show us, after pressing the Win key for a second, all the possible Windows keyboard shortcuts.
What is Windows Walker
Window Walker deserves an ad hoc paragraph. For all intents and purposes it is an application that allows you to switch between open programs by searching for them using the keyboard. While searching for an app, we can use the up and down arrows to see an Alt-Tab-style preview of windows. It’s very likely that the new feature coming in May will be integrated right into Windows Walker. To launch Window Walker just press the Win+Ctrl keys. But we can only get confirmation in May.