Microsoft's Command Palette is a Powerful Launcher For Apps, Search (theverge.com) 41
Microsoft has released Command Palette, an enhanced version of its PowerToys Run launcher introduced five years ago. The utility, aimed at power users and developers, provides quick access to applications, files, calculations, and system commands through a Spotlight-like interface.
Command Palette integrates the previously separate Window Walker functionality for switching between open windows and supports launching command prompts, executing web searches, and navigating folder structures. Unlike its predecessor, the new launcher offers full customization via extensions, allowing users to implement additional commands beyond default capabilities. Available through the PowerToys application since early April, Command Palette can be triggered using Win+Alt+Space after installation
Command Palette integrates the previously separate Window Walker functionality for switching between open windows and supports launching command prompts, executing web searches, and navigating folder structures. Unlike its predecessor, the new launcher offers full customization via extensions, allowing users to implement additional commands beyond default capabilities. Available through the PowerToys application since early April, Command Palette can be triggered using Win+Alt+Space after installation
Why isn't this built-in? (Score:2)
There's already a search box built into the Windows 11 start menu. And they have co-pilot.
Multiple teams working on multiple solutions? I mean I understand that PowerToys is something of a skunkworks project but why don't their brightest minds pool resources!
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Re: Why isn't this built-in? (Score:2)
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Re:Why isn't this built-in? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because who doesn't like having to search for something instead of going right to it.
Perhaps if Microsoft would stop hiding things Windows would be easier to use.
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"But the plans were on display . . . "
. . .
"It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
--Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Re:Why isn't this built-in? (Score:4, Interesting)
because win11 start menu search is useless, co-pilot normally fails at anything involving local actions..
I guess the people working on powertools just got too annoyed at the current idiocy produced by other parts of the company. I mean the different parts do not talk to each other after all.
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It's in the name of the package that delivers the feature: Powertoys. It's not meant for ordinary users. Most of what Powertoys offers is amazing for power users but is just high tech noise to everyone else.
Honestly I think there should be more differentiation between Windows 11 Home and Pro. Pro should have Powertoys baked in from the onset.
Re: Why isn't this built-in? (Score:3)
Might be time to tidy up and put your toys away before bedtime. You look sleepy.
No offence G, you gotta admit that was kinda asking for it.
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This is MS's brightest minds pooling resources. It was the best they could come up with.
Re: Why isn't this built-in? (Score:1)
That search box refuses to work every alternate update. Just flat out blank and won't even show start menu back till you click 3-4 times. On Intel, amd, snapdragon and apple silicon too. Consistently.
Only solution is "Everything" (an app) search and pin stuff to start or the task bar
"Powerful"? (Score:1)
As in "making my computer's fans scream and whine for 5 minutes after one single use"?
No, thank you, the shortcut files were powerful enough 20 years ago already.
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Maybe there's something else going on. My 7-year-old desktop computer didn't even flinch when I ran this thing.
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I thankfully don't have to use windows, but some people around me do, and the whine is incessant.
But the marks are so used to the noise that they just don't notice it anymore.
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I thankfully don't have to use windows, but some people around me do, and the whine is incessant.
Computers whining or people that have to use windows?
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Yes.
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I thankfully don't have to use windows, but some people around me do, and the whine is incessant.
But the marks are so used to the noise that they just don't notice it anymore.
So many Windows users are quite used to it being a big cauldron of suck. They think that is the way that all computers work.
At my previous workplace, I somehow became the Mac support guy. We had maybe a hundred Macs, to several hundred Windows machines.
And we had an army of techs to support Windows, and one not-a-computer-tech to support Macs. And I didn't spend much time supporting them because they were reliable. Although for meetings, I helped keep the Windows trash running since I was there anyh
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I find it amusing that some take pride in the knowledge of tricks to make the "cauldron of suck" boil with less fumes coming out of it, but it creates a lot of jobs. Imagine a world without thousands upon thousands of such cauldrons everywhere, what would all those support people do?
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I find it amusing that some take pride in the knowledge of tricks to make the "cauldron of suck" boil with less fumes coming out of it, but it creates a lot of jobs. Imagine a world without thousands upon thousands of such cauldrons everywhere, what would all those support people do?
Well, the people they support would be a lot more productive.
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As in "making my computer's fans scream and whine for 5 minutes after one single use"?
(Marketing Narrator) “..you can feel the sheer power of AI as it flows through your chassis, breathing life into your digital partner..”
Yup. That’s right. Shits gonna get so cheesy we’re gonna name the first AI marketeer-bot Cheesy McCheeseface.
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As in "making my computer's fans scream and whine for 5 minutes after one single use"?
(Marketing Narrator) “..you can feel the sheer power of AI as it flows through your chassis, breathing life into your digital partner..”
Yup. That’s right. Shits gonna get so cheesy we’re gonna name the first AI marketeer-bot Cheesy McCheeseface.
Wouldn't Mother McFucker work? Pardon my French...
Re: "Powerful"? (Score:2)
Along with endless announcements, and other noise, how else does anything stand out if it is the greatest thing every
It's a menu by another name. Having difficulty believing this the software that is really going to change my life.
Not sure it improves on the Start button (Score:3)
It pretty much does all the same stuff. The PowerToys thing is missing a lot of UX niceness. For example, the up/down arrow keys work, but not page up/down or Home/End, to navigate the list.
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If all you're doing is web searches and typing numbers into a calculator you would think that. The reality is this does far more, it just may not align with what your needs are. Take a look at the Git example in the animation, or try switch windows with the start menu (not the task bar), or use the start menu to generate GUIDs.
Or ... come up with an idea and write a script and incorporate that into the start menu as a plugin. I think you're massively underestimating the importance of that last point.
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You're right, this thing does some things the Start button can't do. I don't know why I would want to use this to switch windows, Alt+Tab and Win+Tab seem very capable of performing this task.
As for git, I don't want to use a jack-of-all-trades interface to use Git, I prefer to use a dedicated Git tool like TortiseGit or Visual Studio's Git support. It's kind of like going to a Denny's and ordering a T-bone steak. It's best to stick with the foods the restaurant is actually good at; in the case of Denny's,
Re:Not sure it improves on the Start button (Score:4, Interesting)
So to the use cases. I don't know how anyone else works, but I know exactly which programs I use on a daily and hourly basis. I'm not sure how many exactly, but I never need to search for a program. People have so many programs installed, and use them so infrequently that spending time searching for them is required? I don't get that.
Everyone I know, clients, colleagues, in professional capacity usually have at most a handful of key programs for their specialty... like a scientist I know, he does simulations on industrial furnaces and uses simulation software for heat transfer and programs he writes himself... Doctor and Dentists: use a soup to donuts system covering patients, billing, employee scheduling, Enterprise systems, the whole office does ALL their work in the enterprise system. Same with government offices, and most corporate environments, no? Even graphic artists. Last time I checked they can't get their heads out of Adobe's ass. What else do they use?
I thought most people doing work and getting things done have a fairly established workflow with programs they know and are familiar with. In fact, those people, in my experience, totally HATE using anything new.
I also know this, as a professional software tool maker. Every tool you use foists it's assumptions on the way you SHOULD work, i.e. The way the tool works. Makes sense, but as tools bring more assumptions to your workflow, you must learn and adapt to THEIR way, so IMHO, many tools take away your agency while promising to increase it. As a tool maker, I trap people into the workflow I design. Also, more bias confessions as a tool maker, I usually resent other tools trapping me into *their* workflow, not reflexively, but because I often disagree with their assumptions and implied workflow.
I don't see the value of this wrapper on text search. To me it is in the toy category, shiny objects to distract you and get between you and what you want, and create a dependency. Do people really have so many programs they don't know they have?
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I am still on PowerToys Run, but it's a vast improvement on the Start Menu. Even when you remove all the crap from the Start Menu search results, they still aren't as good as PowerToys Run. With PowerToys you can choose what you want to see easily, and when you say "just apps" it really does mean just apps.
I have a few other things enabled, like quick registry access and some control commands so I can hibernate or shut down the computer from there.
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Sweet, glad it works for you! I approach search with the opposite perspective, I just want to search and let the system figure out what I want. I don't *want* to have to specify what kind of thing I'm searching for.
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99 times out of 100 I'm opening an app, which is the default. The other times you just put one character in to switch the type of search.
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It pretty much does all the same stuff.
From an InfoSec perspective, I would tend to disagree without even seeing the tool yet.
The Start Menu is part of the basic UI and is built to support every user on the system.
It appears this tool is more targeted towards power users and developers. In other words, a select group of trusted users with advanced access and/or elevated permissions. Using tools that also often require elevated access/permissions, inherently creating a risk to mitigate from a security perspective.
An MS-DOS Command prompt vs. on
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Point taken. Still, for tasks that are more developer-focused, I tend to want to use task-specific tools. Usually, an all-in-one tool does certain things well, but if you go off the beaten path, it becomes more work than just using the normal tool. Consider git. This tool can do some things with git, and maybe it's fine for git pull or git commit, but if you need anything more interactive such as resolving merge conflicts, it might actually make things more difficult.
My command Palette (Score:2)
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Too little, too late (Score:2)
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Microsoft doing the smallest thing for developers in 2025 is too little, too late. I made the switch this year. I would never go back. Linux is so much better, and so much cheaper, and LLMs can really help in resolving challenges.
My own hierarchy is MacOS (UNIX) Linux (UNIX-y) and then if I have to, Windows. Guess which one takes up 99 percent of my troubleshooting time?
The eternal question is how can an operating system be so damn brittle that after all these years, it still isn't very good?
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The reason is that Windows is nothing more than kludges built upon kludges.
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The reason is that Windows is nothing more than kludges built upon kludges.
Pretty accurate.
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> how can an operating system
> be so damn brittle that after all these years,
> it still isn't very good?
This really is the eternal question, because Windows will never stop changing. I've been using it since DOS.
Having used it since some text-only version that ran over DOS, that really is the eternal question.
From my perspective, the operating system mostly manages resources including processes and provides some API. This should probably be pretty stable code
ERROR! (Score:2)
This must be an ERROR of the type KERNEL PANIC of the universe. Some which is actually good comes out of Microsoft?!