Are You Familiar with Windows PowerToys? Here’s an Overview

Windows PowerToys is a set of cool tools that can make your workday easier, if you know how to use them. Let’s take a quick look at some of the most useful ones for businesses and how you can put them to work.

Before we dive in, just a heads-up: these tools aren’t something you should install just anywhere. It’s always best to have a trusted IT professional handle software installations on business computers, whether that’s our team at BSGtech or another reliable provider. That way, everything is properly managed and documented.

Alright, now let’s assume you’ve got PowerToys installed and ready to go. Here’s what you need to know.

How to Use PowerToys

Once installed, PowerToys will launch automatically when you start your computer. You’ll see its icon in the Windows taskbar, and clicking on it brings up a list of available tools. There’s also a More button to explore additional features.

Need help figuring out how something works? Click the page icon at the bottom to access Microsoft’s official guides. There’s also a bug icon for reporting issues and a settings menu where you can customize which tools you see most often.

10 PowerToys You’ll Probably Use the Most

While PowerToys offers a lot, these ten utilities are the ones you’ll likely find the most useful in your day-to-day work:

• Always On Top - Keep a specific window pinned to the front (Win+Ctrl+T) so it never gets buried under other apps.
• Crop And Lock - Create a mini-window of an existing window to make it easier to reference.
• FancyZones - Organize your open windows into custom layouts for better multitasking.
• Keyboard Manager - Remap keyboard shortcuts to make them more useful.
• New+ - Quickly create new files and folders in File Explorer using templates.
• PowerRename - Rename multiple files at once with smart bulk-editing options.
• Quick Accent - Easily add accent marks to text without memorizing key combinations.
• Shortcut Guide - Press (Win+Shift+/) to see a list of shortcuts based on what’s on your screen.
• Text Extractor - Copy text from places where copy-pasting isn’t normally allowed (Win+Shift+T).
• Workspaces - Set up and launch your favorite apps in one click for a seamless workflow (Win+Ctrl+`).

Of course, this is just scratching the surface—there’s a lot more PowerToys can do! If you’re interested in using it for your business, we can help set it up as part of our managed IT services. Just give us a call at (866) 546-1004, and we’ll take care of the rest.