Back in May 2019, Microsoft rebooted its PowerToys, a modern version of the suite of tools that appeared on Windows 95. The core difference was that the suite is now open source. Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows 10 started with the Shortcut Guide and FancyZones tools. Now, developers have announced four new tools for the service.
In October, Clint Rutkas returned to Microsoft to head up the PowerToys division. Rutkas was with Microsoft for years, including as Senior PM for the developer platform. In June he decided to move to Facebook as a Developer Advocate.
Since rebooting PowerToys, Microsoft tweaked existing tools and added new ones like Keyboard Configuration and a PowerLauncher tool. As the development team moves towards version 1.0 of the suite, there are four new features coming.
In version 0.16 on GitHub, four new tools are detailed: Image Resizer, Window Walker, File Explorer previews for Markdown (.md) files, and PowerRename. Elsewhere, Microsoft has also brought multi-monitor support to FancyZones.
New Features
Starting with PowerRename, the GitHub page describes the tool as allow bulk renaming for large file sets. As for Preview Panes, it is a read-only preview that shows file contents. Available in File Explorer, users can see the preview by selecting the View tab and choosing “Preview Pane”.
Next up is Windows Walker, a text-based alternative to Alt-Tab for switching between open windows. Users can leverage the up and down keyboard arrows to see a preview of windows open in Windows 10. Windows Walker will eventaually be part of the Launcher tool.
As for the launch of version 1.0, the dev team is targeting a September launch.