62 27 April – 10 May 2022 • Issue 630
SEARCH & RUN
Stop Using Windows
PowerToys Run lets you
find and open files and
programs much faster
than built-in Windows
tools, and offers plenty
of clever features.
Robert Irvine reveals the
best tips for power users
Set your preferred keyboard shortcut to
activate PowerToys RunSearch the web and open browser bookmarks
directly from PowerToys RunT
he Search and Run tools built
into Windows are definitely
showing their age, and even in
Windows 11 they can be slow
and unreliable. Microsoft now offers a
superior alternative in the form of
PowerToys Run, which is faster, simpler
and smarter to use. Available as part of
the fantastic free system-tweaking suite
PowerToys (www.snipca.com/41543),
this tool combines the features of
Windows Search and Run with a host of
other useful options, though many of
these require special activation commands.
Here we reveal how to unlock the full
potential of PowerToys Run by using its
best secret features.Get started with PowerToys Run
To activate PowerToys Run, download
PowerToys from http://www.snipca.com/41544
(scroll down to the Assets heading and
double-click the ‘.exe’ file), install the
program, then right-click its icon in yoursystem tray (if you can’t see this, click the
up arrow to show hidden icons) then
click Settings. Select ‘PowerToys Run’ in
the left-hand menu and switch on the
Enable PowerToys Run option.
You can now launch the tool by
pressing Alt+Space on your keyboard.
To choose a different activation shortcut,
click the pencil icon (see screenshot
below left), press the keys you’d prefer
to use and click Save. Note that only
shortcuts that start with Windows key,
Ctrl, Alt or Shift are valid.Speed up Windows and
web searches
Start typing the name of a file or folder
you want to find and PowerToys Run will
instantly list matching results from your
hard drive in the box below. You can then
browse these using your arrow keys and
either press Enter or click a selected entry
to open it – much faster than using
Windows Search. To the right of each
entry, you’ll see icons that let you
perform handy tasks with a single click,
including ‘Open containing folder (to
view the file in File Explorer) and ‘Copy
path’ (to save the file location).
By default, PowerToys Run displays
four search results immediately, but you
can increase this number via the ‘Search
& results’ section of the Settings page. To
prevent your last search from appearing
when you launch the tool, tick the ‘Clear
the previous query on launch’ box.
PowerToys Run also includes webresults so that if you type, for example,
amazon.co.uk, it will let you open
https://amazon.co.uk, search the web for
‘amazon.co.uk’ or open Amazon links
saved in your browser’s bookmarks (see
screenshot above).
To use the tool solely to perform a web
search, type ??, enter your query and
press Enter, for example ?? London
weather. PowerToys Run will open your
default web browser and display results
from its default search engine – whereas
the standard Windows Search will use
Edge. Typing // then a URL will open that
website in your browser.
Similarly, you can preface search
queries with a single question mark to
only search for files and folders.Perform calculations and
conversions
The standard Run tool lets you launch the
Windows Calculator by typing calc.exe,
but PowerToys Run goes much further by
performing calculations for you. Simply
type the equals symbol = followed by