Playing with Microsoft PowerToys
Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities designed for power users that adds some additional features not included by default in the operating system, which aims to improve power users experience and productivity.
PowerToys is supported for Windows 10 and Windows 11, and it can be installed using different methods as the Microsoft Store, Windows Package Manager or an executable file. Once installed, we should take a look at the PowerToys Settings app to enable/disable the different utilities included, and to check the general settings:
In the left menu there is also an item for each utility, to configure their settings, for example the integration with the File Explorer or the shortcut required to launch the application:
Admin tip (1): there are administrative templates that allow to use Active Directory Group Policies to configure some PowerToys settings, such as the state of each utility.
Admin tip (2): this is not a tool intended for system administrators, it is for power users.
Now, I am going to briefly review 4 of the included utilities, but I really recommend checking PowerToys documentation to learn more about all the utilities available and their different features: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
Always On Top
Very simple but useful: this tool allows to pin a windows always on top. Sometimes we need to pin a window to be in the foreground, with Always on Top we only need to use the activation shortcut (Windows + Ctrl+ T) to achieve that. By default, the pinned window will have a blue frame to differentiate from others.
Awake
This tool allows to keep the computer awake without changing the configured power plan.
FancyZones
This is a window manager tool that creates different layouts, aimed to make easier working with different applications at the same time. It has several options that allow a great customization of the working areas.
PowerRename
PowerRename is a renaming tool which allows to change the name of several files at the same time. It may seem a simple tool but it provides some features that may be very useful. Let me show you some practical examples:
Example 1 — Rename based on a simple pattern
For a folder, we want to rename all the files named PhotoN.jpg (being N a number) to Holidays2024-N.jpg. Super simple!
As you can see in the image above, after introducing the pattern to search (1) and the replacement (2), we will preview which files match the search and which will be the result if we apply the change.
Additionally, if after applying the change we want to undo it, the option “Undo” from Windows File Explorer is able to undo the bulk renaming, recovering the previous names.
Example 2 — Rename using a regex
We want to rename all the files which name start with ABC or GHI to a name starting with ZZZ:
Of course, you should be careful with the regex and ensure that the one you are using is accurate, but the preview feature that this tool provides is very useful for that.
Tip: use the RegEx help button for some help during the creation of the expression:
Example 3 — Rename using regex and variables
A folder contains several folders with this name pattern: 3 first letters of the month + year, such as Jan2023 or Feb2022. We want to change the name to year + 3 first letters of the month. This can be done very easily using regex and variables:
What I am using here are capturing groups. Considering that each capturing group is defined by the parenthesis, I defined a first group that matches any text (.*), and a second group that matches 4 digits (\d\d\d\d). Then, to rename changing the order, I used the reference to the capture groups.
Extra
PowerRename also includes a feature to add information about the file creation data and time to the name:
Final thoughts
As already commented, I recommend checking the official product documentation in order to learn more about this tool. For sure it is not useful for everyone, but maybe some tool is helpful for you. If you finally install PowerToys, I encourage you to disable those utilities that are not interesting for you.
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