PowerToys 0.99 is rolling out with two major new utilities—Grab And Move and Power Display—plus big upgrades to Command Palette, Dock, Keyboard Manager, and ZoomIt that make Windows 11 feel a lot more like a power user’s playground.
PowerToys 0.99: What’s new in this release
Microsoft’s latest PowerToys update (version 0.99) focuses on three pillars: easier window management, smarter multi‑monitor control, and quality‑of‑life improvements across existing tools. The update is available now through the built‑in PowerToys updater or via the official GitHub releases page for anyone on Windows 11 (and most Windows 10 installs).
In the official announcement, Microsoft highlights Power Display for tray‑based monitor controls, the new Grab And Move utility for drag‑anywhere window management, and a wave of refinements for Command Palette and Dock as the headline features of this release. You can read Microsoft’s full breakdown of the release on the Command Line blog. Check the breakdown video opening with a horrible Prince pun below.
Grab And Move: Linux‑style window dragging on Windows
Grab And Move is a brand‑new PowerToys utility that finally brings a very Linux‑like window gesture to Windows: hold a modifier key and drag anywhere inside a window to move or resize it. By default, holding Alt + Left‑click lets you drag the window, while Alt + Right‑click lets you resize it directly from the cursor position—no more hunting for tiny title bars or borders.
If you already rely on Alt for system shortcuts or accessibility tools, you can switch the modifier to the Windows key instead, making it easier to integrate with existing workflows. Grab And Move is especially useful on ultra‑wide or multi‑monitor setups where windows often end up partially off‑screen, and Microsoft has wired it into the standard PowerToys Settings experience, including GPO policy support and an OOBE page for easier rollout in managed environments.
Power Display: Monitor controls in your system tray
Power Display is another standout preview utility in PowerToys 0.99 that moves common monitor controls into the Windows system tray. Once enabled, you can open a flyout from the tray icon or via a configurable keyboard shortcut to see all connected displays in one place.
For monitors that expose the right hardware controls, Power Display lets you adjust brightness, contrast, volume, and even color profiles directly from Windows, so you can stop reaching around the back of your display to mash physical buttons. You can also create monitor profiles—e.g., “Gaming,” “Photo editing,” “Late‑night writing”—and switch between them with a single click, and those profiles can now be automatically triggered using Light Switch so your monitor setup changes based on whether Windows is in light or dark mode.
Command Palette and Dock get smarter and more reliable
On top of the new utilities, PowerToys 0.99 invests heavily in Command Palette and its Dock, continuing the work Microsoft started in PowerToys 0.98. Extensions can now surface plain text and image viewer content types directly in the Palette’s content pane, which means raw text and zoomable images can be shown inline instead of forcing you out to another window.
Command Palette also gains a persistent calculator history, complete with options to save, reuse, delete, and clear entries, plus a configurable primary action and the ability to replace the query when you hit Enter. Dock behavior has been tightened up as well: you can keep Dock always on top; when it’s pinned to the top or bottom of the screen, a Compact mode hides the subtitle for a cleaner, more condensed layout. Pinning commands from Command Palette is more flexible too, with a new dialog that lets you pick where items appear in Dock and whether each pinned command should show its title and subtitle.
Behind the scenes, this release fixes two separate typing‑related crash scenarios, hardens extension loading so a single bad extension no longer wipes out the full extension list, improves indexer search with filename broadening, and adds Windows Search availability indicators along with Windows Terminal profile pinning complete with per‑profile icons.
Keyboard Manager, ZoomIt, and other polish
Keyboard Manager continues the refinement that started with the revamped editor in 0.98. In PowerToys 0.99, once you record a shortcut or key remap, each key appears as a dropdown so you can manually tweak it or pick keys that don’t physically exist on your keyboard—handy for advanced layouts and power‑users who rely on custom layers. There is also a new “Disabled” action so you can quickly turn off specific keys or shortcuts, and Microsoft has fixed a major bug affecting multi‑line text replacement, which should make Keyboard Manager more dependable in chat apps and plain text editors.
ZoomIt, the long‑running screen annotation tool, is also getting a meaningful update. You can now capture scrolling screenshots to grab entire pages or content that extends beyond the visible viewport, and ZoomIt can extract text directly when you snip so you can immediately reuse it without extra copy‑paste steps. The built‑in break timer has been enhanced with a screen saver mode, making it easier to step away from your PC while still clearly signaling that you’re on a break.
On top of that, Image Resizer has been migrated from WPF to WinUI 3 for a more modern UI and better consistency with the rest of the PowerToys suite, Advanced Paste now properly releases modifier keys before issuing Ctrl+C so apps like Teams and VS Code behave correctly, Settings picks up multiple UI and usability improvements, and the default module set is now lighter for new installs so first‑time users aren’t overwhelmed. PowerToys’ system tray icon has also been refreshed with a new monochrome design and now displays a badge when updates are available, making it easier to catch new versions like this one as soon as they drop.
Why this matters for Windows power users
With PowerToys 0.99, Microsoft is clearly positioning its utility pack as a must‑have for anyone trying to squeeze more productivity out of Windows 11. Features like Grab And Move and Power Display directly tackle day‑to‑day annoyances—like wrestling with windows on ultra‑wide monitors or fumbling for monitor buttons—while Command Palette, Dock, and Keyboard Manager updates keep pushing PowerToys toward being a central “command center” for advanced workflows.
If you are already customizing your Windows experience with tools like Xbox’s remote play and low‑latency streaming or leaning into Copilot‑powered workflows across Microsoft 365, PowerToys 0.99 slots in as another layer of personalization and control on the desktop. And if you work with screenshots a lot—whether for writing how‑to guides like our Windows 11 screenshot shortcuts overview or capturing long web pages—ZoomIt’s new scrolling capture and instant text extraction can significantly cut down the friction of grabbing and reusing on‑screen content.
For more on Microsoft’s broader productivity and AI efforts, you can dive into our beginner‑friendly Microsoft 365 Copilot overview or explore how Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs are evolving into AI‑first devices. PowerToys 0.99 may be “just” a utility update, but it reflects the same theme we are seeing across Microsoft’s ecosystem: less friction, more control, and smarter defaults for people who live in Windows all day.
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