Microsoft is giving more PowerToys a Windows 11 revamp

With Windows 11 comes a new look, a new visual language. It is central to the operating system and the way it feels, and software developers are preparing to embrace this new aesthetic in their products.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft has embarked on a mission to update the look of many of its products and services to match that of Windows 11, and one area in which this can be seen is in PowerToys. There have already been some changes introduced to the collection of utilities, and now the team behind the much-loved Windows enhancement suite has given a glimpse of further updates to comes.

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Ultimately, we can expect to see all of the PowerToys tools getting a Windows 11 makeover, but it is going to be a gradual process. With different developers working on different utilities, the revamped design will spread its way through the utilities slowly.

Some of the settings for PowerToys have already been treated to a new Windows 11 look, and one of the next tool in line is PowerRename.

Writing on GitHub, UX designer Niels Laute says:

Since @stefansjfw is making solid progress on making WinUI support possible for PowerRename, I played around with Fluent for Windows 11 and how we can optimize the UI.

He shares a picture of the work so far:

Laute shares details of a number of changes:

• Moving away from CheckBox only, and use other means where appropriate.
• Add logical groupings of settings
• Mica material and Segoe Fluent Icons!
• Based on @dnknn introducing the concept of "Bookmarks". Clicking on the button would show a jumplist of created bookmarks. Updating a setting would show a "Save as bookmark" button that allows you to name the bookmark and save it. Managing bookmarks (e.g. renaming or deleting) would happen in Settings).

It's not clear quite when this new look will be released in a new version of PowerToys, but it's unlikely to be a long wait.