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Microsoft is Relaunching PowerToys For Windows 10 Users
Microsoft announced this week that they will be bringing back the Windows PowerToys so that a new generation of users can enjoy them. To start they will be offering two new PowerToys, but have a list of others that they hope to add.
For those who are unfamiliar with Windows PowerToys, they were small freeware utilities that were created by Windows developers as side projects related to something that they were interested about. They were not supported by Microsoft and were use-at-your-own-risk type of tools.
For Windows users, especially power users, they allowed you to play with Windows internals by tweaking undocumented features, play with fun tools, or to provide functionality that made it easier to get things done.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 16 2019, @03:19PM (5 children)
MS article with 3 comments. What a sign of the times that is.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday May 16 2019, @05:10PM
Well, it is a Toy operating system, nothing that serious STEM peoples would have anything to comment on.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday May 16 2019, @09:31PM (2 children)
Well, so far they are releasing only two things: A Windows shortcut key popup (useless), and an option on hovering on a maximize button to have the program open in a new virtual environment (might have corner cases, but for me as a user seems pretty useless). Some of the other things they have ideas about but aren't releasing yet might have some use.
Let's just say it's a far cry from TweakUI and Open Command Window Here. That was also TFA's take on it. Which makes sense, given that MS's current operational playbook is to limit options and take away configurability as much as possible and take away the excellent prior user interface and replace it with a godawful Clippy "I know what you want to do better than you do" functionality.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday May 16 2019, @11:29PM (1 child)
I did wonder if the windows shortcut popup might be nice for my "less technical" users as a memory aid but decided that they would never be able to remember how to invoke it, so probably a waste of time.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday May 20 2019, @03:57PM
It might well be useful, but it also reflects what Microsoft currently thinks what a "PowerToy" is, or what a Power User should be possibly. I was a bit harsh - it isn't that what they're releasing doesn't have usability. Just not all that much Power.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @03:25AM
After I switched to Linux on my home machine I stopped caring what happens to Windows