De PowerToys bestaan op dit moment uit Awake, Color Picker, FancyZones, File Explorer Add-ons, Image Resizer, Keyboard Manager, PowerRename, PowerToys Run, Shortcut Guide en de Video Conference Mute. Er waren PowerToys voor Windows 95 en Windows XP en sinds halverwege 2019 is Microsoft ook bezig met de ontwikkeling van een versie voor Windows 10 en hoger. De PowerToys zijn een verzameling kleine programma's voor powerusers. So if you know that you have an area of a window or program you don't use, you can set a specific region to overlap with another, maximizing your screen real-estate.Microsoft heeft versie 0.69.0 van PowerToys uitgebracht.

FancyZones custom layouts also allow you to create overlapping zones. One of FancyZones biggest draws, especially for those working with larger screens, is the customizable screen Snap Layouts. Furthermore, FancyZones has one tool that Snap Layouts doesn't (yet): customizable templates. While FancyZones requires an additional download, it is still a Microsoft tool (and open-source one at that). The six layouts currently available to Windows 11 users aren't much, but we would expect that functionality to rise in the future (not forgetting that Windows 11 is still very much in development).

The integration of Snap Layouts directly into Windows 11 undoubtedly makes it easier to use and is a productivity boost, which is, of course, a massive plus. Now, the big question for many Windows users is whether Microsoft's Snap Layouts integration is better than PowerToys FancyZones, the tool that inspired the updated Snap functionality.

Fancyzones