There are a few good articles out there on Windows PowerToys–Microsoft’s return to authoring little, helpful utilities for those looking to work more effectively in their Windows environments.

As of this writing, three utilities come bundled with the project: FancyZones, PowerRename, and Shortcut Guide (although Shortcut Guide is less a utility and more a handy cheatsheet on the cool shortcuts you can trigger with the Windows key on your keyboard).

The tool I’m really looking forward to is PowerLauncher. This tool purports to be an application launcher on par with the likes of Launchy and WoX. Currently, I’m a big user of SlickRun. It’s handy and very flexible. If I can’t get SlickRun to perform a particular action, I can always wrap the action with a PowerShell or batch script and have SlickRun launch that. I’ve used SlickRun for years, but I think it’s high time Microsoft themselves provide a more flexible way to launch applications and other actions from the keyboard–there’s clearly a market for it.

I don’t see any timelines for the release of the utility, but I will be eagerly checking in on the github page for updates.