Lance Whitney / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
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ZDNET's key takeaways
PowerToys now offers a way to resolve hotkey conflicts.
The new version adds a search box to help you find specific tools.
The next version will let you schedule light and dark modes.
As a diehard Windows user, I love hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts. Pressing Ctrl+S to save a file, Ctrl+V to paste content from the clipboard, and Ctrl+X to cut content are all tremendous time savers. And since I also use Microsoft's PowerToys, I have a whole bunch of other hotkeys I can use. But therein lies the problem.
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With so many potential hotkeys and shortcuts available, conflicts can easily arise. A tool in PowerToys may try to usurp a hotkey already reserved for a different tool or a built-in Windows command. And when you press that hotkey, how does Windows know which program or function to launch? Well, now there's a solution.
1. Detects conflicts
The latest version of PowerToys can detect shortcut conflicts both within PowerToys and with Windows itself. Here's how this works.
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Make sure you're running version 0.94 or higher of PowerToys. Double-click its System Tray icon to launch the program to its Home screen. PowerToys will alert you if any shortcut conflicts are detected. Click the alert and you'll then see which ones are in conflict with each other.
On my Windows PC, I was told that the default hotkeys for the Color Picker and Screen Ruler tools in PowerToys would conflict with built-in Windows system shortcuts. From the screen, though, I could easily change the default hotkey for the two PowerToys tools to a different combination, thereby resolving the conflict.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
"With so many shortcuts in PowerToys, it's easy to run into conflicts," Niels Laute, a Microsoft senior product manager, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "Now, shortcuts that are already in use (either by another module or by Windows itself) will be marked in red. On the new shortcut conflicts tile on the home dashboard, you'll also see how many conflicts you currently have. Clicking the tile gives you a full overview and lets you quickly reassign shortcuts so everything works the way you want."
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The fix for shortcut conflicts is reason enough to update PowerToys. But you'll find two other improvements in the latest version.
2. Search tools
With 27 different tools now available in PowerToys, finding a specific one can be challenging. To help, Microsoft has added a search box to the top of the screen. Click the box or press Ctrl+F and start typing the name of the tool you seek. A list of suggestions immediately pops up; just click the tool you want to launch.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
3. Gliding cursor
Next up, the Mouse Pointer Crosshairs tool has long been part of PowerToys as a way to help you see and position your mouse pointer through large red crosshairs. Now, a new gliding cursor mode provides greater precision.
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Instead of moving the crosshairs around the screen to find the spot you want, you can trigger the gliding cursor. At that point, the crosshairs start to automatically glide across the screen. Pressing the shortcut again locks the horizontal position. Pressing it once more locks the vertical position. And then pressing it yet again clicks on the current area.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
4. Keyboard Manager
Those are the major enhancements with version 0.94 of PowerToys. But there's more in store with the next update, according to Laute.
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How to try PowerToys
Arriving next month with version 0.95 will be a revamped interface for the Keyboard Manager, which lets you remap keyboard keys and shortcuts. Also on tap will be a tool that can automatically switch Windows between light and dark mode based on your own schedule.
If you don't already have PowerToys and would like to try it, download and install it from its GitHub page or its Microsoft Store page. If you already have it and want to update it to the new version, just open the program and click the Update button.