Microsoft's New PowerToys Run Launcher for Windows 10 is Now Available To Download (theverge.com) 46
Microsoft is releasing a new Spotlight-like launcher app for Windows 10 today. Designed to replace and modernize the existing Win + R shortcut, the new PowerToys Run launcher includes quick search for apps and files across Windows, plugins like a calculator, and the ability to find running processes. From a report: This early version will support basic search tasks that are typically handled by the built-in Windows Start menu search functionality. But there are plans to make this a more powerful launcher that's similar to Alfred on macOS and more functional than Apple's Spotlight search. The current Win + R functionality is basic and used by Windows power users to launch cmd prompts, regedit, powershell instances, and even shortcuts to areas in Windows like the Control Panel. This new PowerToys Run launcher will support all of the same commands that Run does currently in Windows, but Microsoft is collaborating with an open-source community that's contributing to make it far more powerful. Also read: Microsoft Debuts Windows Package Manager for Your Dev Environment.
They're going to fuck it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Guaranteed they fuck it up. Currently you can win-R, type your command and you're off to the races. Simple, clean, efficient.
My guess is they'll add mouse clicks necessary to run what you want, maybe make it so the text field isn't highlighted so you have to activate it before you can start typing. Then it'll default to Windows Store apps that require you to login and install.
Please, MS, for the love of all that's holy, leave it, the fuck, alone.
Re:They're going to fuck it up (Score:4, Insightful)
Guaranteed they fuck it up.
Obviously. Currently it does what you ask it to do. They're going to make it so it thinks for you. Which means a} it'll do it wrong and b} it'll take forever to search for all the wrong things.
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"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
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Remember how this story ended? HAL got killed.
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Hibernated. But for Windows I would like a full, permanent kill. Then we could finally overcome this historical aberration.
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Anyone who ever sent Windows into hibernate knows that it has a good chance to kill it.
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True that.
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It will search for all the right things. For microsoft's bottom line.
Remember, MS is aggressively moving windows 10 from "pay once, use forever" platform for private use to "software as a service or ad supported software".
Search box makes for a natural channel for ads. See: biggest ad company on the planet.
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It actually looks pretty good (Score:3)
At a glance it seems kinda cool. It doesn't replace Win-R, you trigger it with Alt-Space (I think this is the same as Spotlight on Mac?), so you don't need to worry about Win-R going away.
I tried to install it (not for this, but for the Keyboard Manager, a new tool as of this release I've been waiting for!) but it has a dependency on .NET Core which requires separate installation - it tries to install it automatically but the UX for this is still very beta and confusing [github.com] so I haven't had time to get it up an
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The keyboard manager has a lot of potential. I use an app called KbdEdit which is more powerful, it lets you do things like assign symbols to keys. For example I have right-alt-o produce an omega symbol, right-alt-d sends a degree symbol, right-alt-u sends mu, right-alt-p sends Pi...
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I expect that as well. MS is the king of making things use 3 clicks (where one would be enough), hiding functions you need all the time and generally making working with their stuff a pain. It is almost like they believe their stuff _should_ be unpleasant to work with.
Also, still no halfway decent pager in Win10. FVWM had one 27 years ago and it still works the same today.
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Well, and it breaks...a lot. My favorite error is that you can't run it as admin, even if you're admin.
It's a fucking calculator, it's 100k at most, and those retards managed to fuck it up.
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What possible reason could there be to run calculator as Admin?
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What possible reason could there be to prevent someone from running calc as admin?
Reliability (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nah, I see the similar behaviour on plenty of Windows 10 desktops and Windows Server 2016 machines. If you start typing too quickly after clicking the Start button (or pressing the Windows key) then it returns no local search results. If you Ctrl-A, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V it suddenly wakes up and returns the expected results.
It's like the Windows 10 Start menu is run by NodeJS now and they've fucked up an RxJS debounce timer. Never had these problems on Windows XP, 7 and 8.
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Rebooting gets it functional again. Manually killing and restarting explorer.exe also does so. I shouldn't have to do that every time the Start Menu stops working though.
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It isn't replacing Win+R it is a new feature. It is started with Alt+Space so if you like Win+R you aren't losing anything.
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It isn't replacing Win+R it is a new feature. It is started with Alt+Space so if you like Win+R you aren't losing anything.
Perhaps you missed this part of the summary and the article:
Designed to replace and modernize the existing Win + R shortcut
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It is designed to replace Win-R but it isn't eliminating Win-R. It is analogous to PowerShell. PowerShell is the default terminal now in Windows 10 but you still have access to cmd.
Keypirinha (Score:3)
So, basically like Keypirinha (https://keypirinha.com), but (at least for now) less featured... ?
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Executor [1space.dk] is better than Keypirinha.
Interesting, I'll have to give it a try.
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Oh wow, thanks for this, it really is. I always hated the messing around I had to do with KP and how it would sometimes not pick up programs in my paths, but then the thing I was looking for would suddenly appear.
Great! Now I can use KDE's Alt+F2 here. (Score:2)
PowerToys Run is really nice. I really missed the Alt+F2 KRunner feature that KDE offered since... when? 20 years ago in KDE 2.x time?
Too bad that it took them this long, but it is good to see this feature finally implemented.
I believe they posted the wrong link... (Score:2)
All you need (Score:2)
For any version of Windows is a simple program called Everything. https://www.voidtools.com/ [voidtools.com]
It searches all your drives as fast as you type.
More ways to not find what you need. (Score:2)
Because the best way to fix an OS where settings are spread all around, in wildly different places and with vastly incongruent GUIs, is to add yet another way not to find what you need.
Solving problems i don't have (Score:2)
I don't come to slashdot to find out about MS's latest downloads. I come to read about how they fucked up again, again, again. I come for the nested fuckups.
And yet, no simple editor yet for Start Tiles (Score:4, Interesting)
Should be obvious, you right click on the tile and set properties much like a shortcut, including scripts and windows system programs. But no native Windows properties control and no external Power Toy Start Editor, either, alas
The usual question (Score:2, Insightful)
And as usual when MS comes up with some new bullshit in their OS, the question arises: How do I disable it?
Disappointed (Score:1)
Spotlight isn't event that good (Score:1)