Microsoft has added a new app called Workspaces to PowerToys, which comprises various utilities and add-ons for customizing Windows.
If you’ve ever wanted to launch a bunch of apps with a click of a button, then Workspaces is for you. “Workspaces is a desktop manager utility for launching a set of applications to custom positions and configurations with one click, getting you into your ideal desktop state for any project or activity faster,” Microsoft said. Workspaces has pretty powerful features.
For example, you can set an app to open in a specific state by passing custom command line (CLI) arguments. You could use this to have an app open a specific project or user profile. For example, passing a comma-separated list of URLs to Edge would prompt the browser to automatically open them in tabs at launch. You can create a workspace from scratch by cherry-picking a set of apps and arranging them in custom layouts. Even better, use the state of your desktop as a starting point for a new workspace in the editor!
Workspaces can be a powerful productivity tool for efficiently managing multiple projects. You could dedicate one workspace to all your image editing tasks, another to your office and productivity tasks, another to your social media and messaging apps, etc. To get to a workspace in no time, save it as a desktop shortcut and pin it to the taskbar.
“Launching the workspace will launch all apps to their assigned positions,” Microsoft explains. Unfortunately, an app must first open in its default position before receiving a command from Workspaces to move to a certain position. “This results in the user visibly seeing the process on-screen,” Microsoft warns. “To help with this, we added the dialogue box during launch to display the launch status of each app.”
Before you can use the utility, you must turn on Workspaces in your PowerToys settings. With that done, hit “Launch editor” in the Workspaces settings or press Win+Ctrl+` on the keyboard to bring up the editor. Clicking “+ Create workspace” will capture your current desktop layout.
You can remove apps you don’t need, change window positions (click the app’s dropdown menu), and more in the edit view at any time. Before saving the workspace, be sure to select “Create desktop shortcut” so you can quickly launch multiple workspaces from the desktop.
You can also launch an app in a workspace as an admin. However, a bug prevents an app launched in this state from appearing in its designated position (will be fixed in an upcoming release). Also, Workspaces doesn’t remember snapped window positions.
PowerToys is available on the Microsoft Store and GitHub. PowerToys works on x64 and Arm64 architectures and supports all versions of Windows 11 and Windows 10 v2004 (19041) or newer. We’ve rounded up the utilities included in PowerToys for those interested.
Source: Microsoft
