Powertoys: "Run" was my favorite.

What's the second one? PowerToys and?
- It's WSL, I think the logo is relatively new though or maybe not official idk

until you realise it's just a Microsoft-flavored VM
- only the second version. wsl1 is pure black magic. the communication layer is 9P, which means that windows is currently the only mainstream OS capable of talking to a Plan9 network out of the box.

Oh, yes all the tools that should already exist in their crappy, uninnovated OS.

They still haven’t figured out how to do updates without installing during a reboot.
Something Linux has been doing since the 90’s
- Sometimes those updates only apply when you reboot.

No, it doesn't make Windows behave like Linux.

It are just a collection of apps made by the engineers behind Windows with features that never made it into the official build because of all kinds of reasons.

Proud victim of the Powertoys to Linux pipeline reporting in

Holy shit! It's real
Windows - > Powertoys - > Winget - > Win Debloater - > Minimal Windows - > Bazite - > Debian
- It's so beautiful!
  That's my journey too, except a few of those didn't exist yet, when I first walked it.
  Portable Windows apps and Ubuntu live Boot CDs awkwardly bridges some of the (previous) gaps, for me.

I miss the window tiling one. Its ability to span multiple "areas" with a window by holding a modifier key is something I sorely wish KDE's tiling had.

Edit: FancyZones! Finally remembered the name.

Thought KDE did have one? Unless I installed an extension and forgot about it.
Super + T to configure
And works with Super + left click to move windows (no more hunting that pesky titlebar up top)
Edit: I'm on KDE 5 so things may be different, but I found it under Workspace Behaviour>Desktop Effects>Window Management
- Yeah this is inbuilt (not an extension) and very similar to Windows fancy zones.
- Meta as in Super?
- they talked about a specific functionality and they specifically said they wish kde's tiling had it. i can't check whether it does but the commenter clearly isn't unaware of the zones, they just want different functionality.
- It does, but in Plasma you can only snap a window to a single area. With FancyZones you can create a more detailed grid and hold a modifier key to make the window span multiple areas, so it's much more flexible than the fixed layout of KDE. For example you can make a 4x4 grid and choose to span a window across 4x1 or 1x4. That's impossible in Plasma (for now).
I know it’s not KDE Plasma, but Gnome on Ubuntu has Tiling Shell. It also lets you span multiple tiles too.
- Yeah, but then I'd be using Gnome.
Fancy zones and alt snap rule! (Although I believe alt snap - click-dragging windows with a keyboard activator - is core window manager stuff?)
- It isn't the snapping I was referring to, but the ability to make a window span multiple areas. In KDE the window can only snap into a single area.

Meh... switch to linux, already

All fun and games but I'm still missing the "paste without format" keybind.

Powertoys is a great addition and while there probably are addons for all of these in linux I kinda wish they would come in one package together too.

Maybe it's just me but I feel like I'm not helping my system by tagging on add on after add on just to get back some basic functionality from Window like a clipboard and status indicators for some apps in my taskbar

You are not a Plasma user it seems.
- Nope Gome 48 on Fedora 42
Does ctrl-shift-v not work for you? Or do you want to rebind it?
- I did not know that was a think until now but yes I want to rebind it 🙈 I will need to look into this for gnome
KDE plasma has like 90% of the feadures.
I kinda wish they would come in one package together too.
You may be able to find themed meta packages (single packages that install a suite of related features) for this, depending what you're looking for.
Lately, I have been confused because I was looking for Gnome add-ons for features that vwere already included but just toggled off.
I now find that most of what I want, as a power user, is a quick settings search and then a toggle button.
The general dividng line, lately, in Gnome, is that plugins may still have bugs, while built-in features tend to be very reliable. Most of what PowerToys contains (that I care about) is just a settings toggle in Gnome. A notable exception is Window tiling, which I use a plugin for.

Power toys is so bad now. Almost all the features are completely useless and it hogs a ton of system resources.

I remember using it way more in 98/XP. Group Policy manager is what I have to use for most of the shit I wanna do with 10. Which is only available with a Pro license.

not using https://massgrave.dev/ for windows licences
statements made by the utterly deranged
- I didn't mean imply I don't have one. It's just stupid that such a feature is only available through a more expensive tier if you actually pay for it.

Have been using PowerToys for years, can't imagine using Windows without it.

It’s for average users to make Windows easier to use. Though that’s the same as making it more Linux like

No true. I use it only for FancyZones. A feature not native to Linux. In gnome I also have to install a plugin to get this functionality.

I'm thankful for both.
The plugin install on Gnome is quicker and less invasive (doesn't require escalated permissions) than installing PowerToys.
I also like that Gnome plugins let me choose only the plugins I want. PowerToys leaves me with many installed features I'm not using. I think they at least all default to turned off. Gnome does save me a few moments of configuration, too, as the plugin can default to "on" since each plugin is separate.
And Gnome's tiling has good defaults. PowerToys still uses "these are power users" as an excuse to ignore usability feedback.

I’ve never heard of PowerToys Run, but it looks like Spotlight on MacOS but for Windows. Is this correct?

Yes! And they also have an Everything (way better search program than Windows has EVER been) plugin that I’ve tweaked to include Everything’s results at the top since the index it does is exponentially better than Windows’ own. Highly recommend for those that want that two button search that has always found what I was looking for on my own computer.
Shoutout to KDE for their search function, KRunner?, as it is amazing and ready to go from the get go.
Pretty much.

winsock.dll

Where's my trumpet?
- @BagOfHeavyStones @homesweethomeMrL stolen by Trump?

Is there a Linux application that does what fancyzones does?

If you are under KDE, there is a plugin for this, but I don't recall the name. I'll tell you later when on my computer. I use it everyday.
- So it is a separate app you have to manually install?
  Kind of like PowerToys itself?
Gnome also has a plugin(s) for this.
I use both, Fancy Zones and Gnome, but I like (one of) the gnome version(s) better.
Mainly, the Gnome version puts a quick toggle on screen for switching layouts with the mouse, and it makes better choices about what windows to display when shifting between windows with Alt+Tab.

Powertoys on windows are a boon, but there's absolutely no word you can say they make windows "behave like linux". Not even close.

Holy shit powertotys run is the one of the only reasons i can tolerate windows 11 on a works laptop.

Local admin to go digging through group policy settings, just so i don't have to scroll past 2 pages of ads and internet results in the start menu to open fucking "settings"?

They can absolutely fuck right off with that.

What does it do?
- it's an alt-space launcher.
  you press alt+space, a little box pops up in the centre of the screen and works the way the search box in the start menu is supposed to work.
  No ads, no internet search results, just application and file search, perhaps some cheeky addition or multiplication.

The fact that Microsoft refers to the application suite that makes Windows marginally useful as "toys" should tell you everything you need to know about their OS philosophy. I prefer an OS that takes my use cases seriously.