Microsoft released PowerToys 0.100.0 on June 9, 2026, for Windows 10 and Windows 11, packing a rebuilt Shortcut Guide, a brand-new extension gallery for the Command Palette, multi-monitor Dock support, and the first wave of Power Display improvements. The update, which pushes the utility suite to a landmark triple-digit minor version, underscores Microsoft’s commitment to polishing the power-user toolkit that has become indispensable for millions of Windows enthusiasts.

The release lands three months after the 0.99.0 update and coincides with internal telemetry showing PowerToys now runs on over 25 million active devices each month. While the version number bump from 0.99 to 0.100 may seem incremental, the engineering effort behind it is substantial—Microsoft’s open-source team refactored three core utilities, introduced a modular extension system, and laid groundwork for future utilities that are expected to arrive before the end of 2026.

A New Milestone for PowerToys

PowerToys started its modern revival in 2019 as a passion project from the Windows developer community and quickly evolved into an officially supported Microsoft product. The suite now includes 18 individual utilities ranging from FancyZones window management to PowerRename bulk renaming. Version 0.100.0 marks the first time the project’s maintainers have overhauled the Shortcut Guide since its introduction in 2020, and it debuts a framework that could turn the Command Palette into the most extensible launcher on Windows.

Users on both Windows 10 version 21H2 and later and all editions of Windows 11 can download the new version from the Microsoft Store, the official GitHub releases page, or via the built-in updater. The installer has been slimmed down by 12 percent, and the team claims cold-start performance has improved by roughly 200 milliseconds thanks to lazy-loading of unused modules.

Revamped Shortcut Guide: What’s New?

The Shortcut Guide has long been a sleeping giant within PowerToys—a simple overlay summoned by holding the Windows key for 500 milliseconds that displays every available keyboard combination. In version 0.100.0, the entire module has been rebuilt from the ground up with XAML Islands and modern WinUI 3 components.

The new overlay is translucent and adapts to the system’s accent color. It can now be pinned to the screen by pressing a configurable hotkey, allowing users to keep the reference visible while working through multiple shortcuts. Guidance text has been sharpened: entries now include a one-line description beneath each key combination, and developers have grouped shortcuts by context—general navigation, window management, input, and accessibility.

Accessibility users gain a significant upgrade. The Shortcut Guide now integrates with Narrator and other screen readers, announcing shortcut names and descriptions as the guide opens. A high-contrast mode matches the system setting, and text scaling beyond 200% no longer clips content. Microsoft also added a search-driven filtering mode: start typing after triggering the guide to show only shortcuts matching your query. For example, type “snap” and the overlay narrows to show Win+Arrow combinations.

Enterprise customers aren’t left out. Group Policy templates have been updated so IT administrators can enforce or disable the pinned overlay and control the activation delay. A new “Shortcut Coverage” report inside the PowerToys Settings dashboard tallies which shortcuts a user has never triggered, hinting at what they might be missing.

Beneath the surface, the rewrite eliminates a long-standing bug where the overlay would sometimes fail to dismiss on high-DPI laptop displays when docking or undocking. The team says the new rendering pipeline reduces GPU usage by 40 percent while the guide is visible, addressing complaints from users with integrated graphics on Surface Go and similar devices.

The Command Palette, which was first introduced as “PowerLauncher” and later renamed, is a Spotlight-like search bar that indexes local applications, files, settings, and system commands. With version 0.100.0, it gains a sorely missing feature: an extension gallery.

Baked directly into the Command Palette settings page, the gallery allows users to browse and install extensions without leaving the PowerToys UI. At launch, the catalog contains 28 community-developed extensions vetted by Microsoft. These include a system information card that displays CPU temperature and RAM usage, a clipboard manager that surfaces pinned items, a Windows Terminal profile switcher, and integrations with third-party services such as Spotify, Notion, and Obsidian.

Extension developers benefit from a new manifest schema and a lightweight SDK that Microsoft published alongside the release. Extensions are sandboxed by default and run in a separate process, similar to how Visual Studio Code handles plug‑ins. Users can rate and review extensions, and the Command Palette displays aggregated scores and installation counts. A “Featured” section curated by Microsoft surfaces the most polished submissions each week.

For organizations, the gallery supports enterprise blocking. Administrators can define an allowlist of permitted extensions via Group Policy or Intune, preventing users from installing anything beyond approved tools. A companion Microsoft Learn article explains how to set up a private extension feed that points to internal line-of-business commands.

Performance-wise, the Command Palette now respects modern hardware. Typing latency has been cut to under 15ms on systems with NVMe drives, and memory usage stays below 150MB even with a dozen extensions active. The team achieved this by decoupling the UI thread from search indexing—a change developers had been requesting since the module’s inception.

Multi-Monitor Dock Support Arrives

One of the headline features in 0.100.0 is the new multi-monitor Dock support. This isn’t a standalone utility but rather a deep integration of a configurable dock into the existing PowerToys framework. The dock behaves like a cross between the macOS Dock and a floating toolbar—it can sit on any screen edge, auto-hide when not in use, and display pinned applications, recent files, and live system tray icons.

The key addition is multi-monitor awareness. Users can now choose to have the dock appear on a specific monitor, mirror across all displays, or show a different set of pinned items on each screen. This addresses a long-standing pain point for power users with complex desktop arrangements: they could no longer rely on the Windows taskbar alone to provide context-aware shortcuts. In test builds, over 60 percent of beta testers with more than two monitors enabled the per-monitor pinning feature.

The dock is built with the same WinUI 3 framework as the Shortcut Guide, so it inherits the acrylic blur, mica material, and dark/light theme support. Users can drag and drop files onto an application icon to open them, right-click to access jump lists, and middle-click to launch a new instance. A new “Dock Flow” layout mode arranges icons in a Cover Flow-style carousel when space is limited, making it usable even on smaller laptop screens.

Microsoft has also exposed a set of APIs for third-party developers who want to extend the dock with custom widgets. Early previews from the community show a weather widget, a Microsoft To Do panel, and a compact OneDrive sync status indicator. While the dock is entirely optional—PowerToys veterans can continue using the Windows taskbar as before—the team expects it to become one of the most popular modules by the end of the year.

Power Display: Early Improvements

Version 0.100.0 introduces the first public iteration of Power Display, a utility that has been hiding in the experimental flags for the past six months. Power Display aims to give users fine-grained control over monitor settings without diving into Display Settings or vendor-specific control panels.

In this release, Power Display can remember and restore per-monitor brightness, contrast, and color profile assignments. When a user connects to an external monitor, the utility automatically applies the saved configuration. It also surfaces advanced options such as DPI scaling per monitor, HDR toggle, and variable refresh rate control—all from a compact flyout that can be summoned with a hotkey.

The utility currently supports DDC/CI for external monitors and the internal brightness API for laptop panels. Users with NVIDIA or AMD GPUs can optionally enable hardware‑accelerated color management, which taps into the GPU’s lookup tables for more accurate gamut clamping. Microsoft warns that GPU features are in beta and may cause flickering on some FreeSync displays.

Power Display also includes a scheduling component that can adjust brightness based on ambient light (when a system has an ambient light sensor) or time of day. It integrates with Windows’ Night Light feature but offers more granular control over color temperature curves. This release lays the groundwork for a future “Power Display Zones” feature that will allow users to define monitor groups and apply settings en masse.

Under-the-Hood Improvements

Beyond the flagship utilities, PowerToys 0.100.0 ships with dozens of smaller refinements. The installer now supports per-user installation, a top request from shared device scenarios. FancyZones received a performance patch that reduces CPU usage when dragging windows by 22 percent. Image Resizer can now convert images to the AVIF and JPEG‑XL formats, leveraging built-in Windows codec support.

Keyboard Manager added a “repeat key” action type, enabling users to turn any key into a repeat-toggle. The Awake module—which keeps the PC from going to sleep—gained a new timed mode that respects Windows’ active hours. Color Picker now copies hex, RGB, HSL, and CMYK values to the clipboard simultaneously, and users can customize which formats appear in the pop-up.

Microsoft also addressed a memory leak that occurred when PowerToys Run was used alongside certain screen readers. The team credited a community contributor for identifying the root cause—a static event handler that wasn’t being unregistered—during the 0.100.0 beta cycle. The fix alone reduced average session memory by 45MB.

On the security front, all PowerToys binaries are now signed with a publicly verifiable certificate from Microsoft’s open-source signing pipeline. The team has also begun publishing SBOMs (Software Bill of Materials) alongside each release, listing every dependency and its version. These measures follow the same transparency standards Microsoft applies to the Windows operating system itself.

How to Get PowerToys 0.100.0

Existing PowerToys users will see an update notification within the application if automatic checks are enabled. Manual downloads are available from the Microsoft Store (search for “PowerToys”) or from the GitHub releases page at github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/releases/tag/v0.100.0. The installer is offered in x64, ARM64, and x86 architectures. Note that Windows 10 users must be on version 21H2 (build 19044) or newer.

Microsoft has published a detailed change log on the PowerToys documentation site, covering every commit included in the release. For those who prefer to wait, the team expects to ship a 0.100.1 patch by June 23 to address the few issues flagged during the first 48 hours of public rollout.

What Comes Next

During the live community call that accompanied the launch, the PowerToys product team teased what’s in the pipeline. A new “Workspaces” utility—designed to save and restore groups of applications and their window layouts—is scheduled for the 0.102.x cycle. A revamped Screen Ruler with alignment guides and measurement persistence is also in the works. The team is evaluating a “Mouse Spotlight” feature that would magnify and highlight the cursor during presentations, inspired by third-party tools.

The extension gallery for the Command Palette is expected to grow rapidly; Microsoft is running a developer contest with prizes for the top-rated extension submitted before September 1. Winners will be featured in the Microsoft Store and on the PowerToys homepage.

With version 0.100.0, PowerToys cements itself not just as a set of tweaks but as a platform for Windows productivity. The rebuilt Shortcut Guide, extensible Command Palette, multi-monitor Dock, and Power Display all point toward a future where power users can customize their workflow without digging into the registry or relying on unsupported third-party hacks. For the 25 million users who have already adopted the suite, this update is a clear signal that Microsoft is listening—and building the tools they’ve been asking for.