Microsoft PowerToys
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 3 Windows utilities
Free, open-source Microsoft utilities that add window management, launching, OCR and other power-user features Windows lacks. Common caveat: some features feel limited or slow to arrive.
Free, open-source Microsoft utilities that add window management, launching, OCR and other power-user features Windows lacks. Common caveat: some features feel limited or slow to arrive.
64 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 49
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 77%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 49 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Adds utilities Windows lacks
“PowerToys still is on my "first software to install" list even in windows 11 as it adds so much useful features such as peek.”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft Download Center Archive” “It has many other niceties that should really have been baked into Windows in the first place”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “The Copilot+ PC brand is dead” “Things like windows powertoys make the user experience pretty nice”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable” - Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable”
- Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse”
Window management with FancyZones
“If you use a window manager like powertoys on windows or rectangles on mac you can get a config that utilizes the screen.”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “Monitors for Work” “while in windows I'm using powertoys and I can move/resize windows using any space inside a window”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe” “the desktop experience has been tolerable, especially with PowerToys and FancyZones”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop” - Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Was Windows 1.0's lack of overlapping windows a legal or a technical matter?”
- Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Raycast for Windows”
Free, first-party, open-source
“a set of first party customization utilities, one of which is a pretty nice keyboard remapper”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “Why TUIs Are Back” “This is straightforward with Powertoys (official config utility from Microsoft) on Windows.”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Windows 11½” “If you want tweaks that are a little more first party, there's always PowerToys”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “The beauty and terror of modding Windows” - Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Raycast for Windows”
- Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Zero-native – Build native desktop apps with web UI”
OCR, launcher and color picker
“draw a rectangle around the text you want, and it OCRs it to your clipboard”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “The surprisingly complex journey to text-selectable client-side generated PDFs” “has a text extraction tool/shortcut. It also supports multiple languages.”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “I hate screenshots of text” “I've been missing powertoys color picker when i switched to Linux”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “Archtoys – a fast, PowerToys-style color picker for Linux (Rust and Slint)” - Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Microsoft isn't removing Copilot from Windows 11, it's just renaming it”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Heavy disk use and slowdowns
“PowerToys update files were stored on the drive indefinitely, accumulating over 10 gb of disk space”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “The miracle of PowerToys, Microsoft's last great Windows app” “every convenience program I added just noticeably slowed down my laptop”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” “it's taking 1.17Gig of space”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues” New features slow or underwhelming
“Microsoft PowerToys took 4 years to implement "select UI language" feature.”
Comment from 21 Mar 2026 in “Our Commitment to Windows Quality” “it's somewhat limited in my experience”
Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Dell's CES 2026 chat was the most pleasingly un-AI briefing I've had in 5 years” “The new PowerToys are almost useless.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “The beauty and terror of modding Windows” - Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: DeskDock (Always on Dock) – A tool a treat for Windows productivity”
Not a true menu bar, copies Apple
“it's not a menu bar, which can be seen pretty clearly from the screenshots”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft explores bringing top menu bar to Win 11 with new PowerToys feature” “Microsoft again copies something from Apple, this time 20 years late.”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft explores bringing top menu bar to Win 11 with new PowerToys feature”
Other Windows utilities people recommend
The two most recommended other Windows utilities, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft PowerToysThis page | 49 | 15 | 77% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Chris Titus WinUtil | 17 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Chris Titus Tech Windows Utility | 9 | 1 | 90% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 76 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I've been missing powertoys color picker when i switched to Linux”
“This is straightforward with Powertoys (official config utility from Microsoft) on Windows.”
“It has many other niceties that should really have been baked into Windows in the first place”
“If you use a window manager like powertoys on windows or rectangles on mac you can get a config that utilizes the screen.”
“PowerToys could not deliver it.”
“I like Windows, in terms of the desktop UX (with PowerToys).”
“Windows+PowerToys is far more enjoyable and productive to use”
“Power Toys, WSL, a great Terminal, it's an okay machine to develop”
“Windows 10 with Powertoys and WSL for stuff like yt-dlp is a fine stopgap”
“Have a look at first-party programs like PowerToys”
“draw a rectangle around the text you want, and it OCRs it to your clipboard”
“a set of first party customization utilities, one of which is a pretty nice keyboard remapper”
“Or use Powertoys, which I don't know why it isn't a setting.”
“there’s a proper app launcher in PowerToys”
“Microsoft PowerToys took 4 years to implement "select UI language" feature.”
“PowerToys update files were stored on the drive indefinitely, accumulating over 10 gb of disk space”
“if you install Power Toys and use Fancy Zones you can customize the zones”
“The new PowerToys are almost useless.”
“If you want tweaks that are a little more first party, there's always PowerToys”
“it's taking 1.17Gig of space”
“it's not a menu bar, which can be seen pretty clearly from the screenshots”
“Microsoft again copies something from Apple, this time 20 years late.”
“every convenience program I added just noticeably slowed down my laptop”
“There have also been great updates to PowerToys recently”
“while in windows I'm using powertoys and I can move/resize windows using any space inside a window”
“WSL, power toys, many great utils, great performance”
“I remapped it to "Ctrl (Right)" and it's functioning as it should.”
“used Powertoys to remap it to a command that launches it”
“it's somewhat limited in my experience”
“the desktop experience has been tolerable, especially with PowerToys and FancyZones”
“PowerToys still is on my "first software to install" list even in windows 11 as it adds so much useful features such as peek.”
“I relied pretty heavily on the Windows 95 PowerToys when I used Win95.”
“used to be on my "first software to install" list on a new machine”
“They'd cover a lot of those gaps you're complaining about”
“Powertoys is open-source and a first-party project by Microsoft.”
“Custom window management is available with PowerToys”
“The real utilities you'll want to control your UI as a power user.”
“Things like windows powertoys make the user experience pretty nice”
“has a text extraction tool/shortcut. It also supports multiple languages.”
“Find my mouse spotlight mode for presentation by pressing Ctrl twice”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.