Microsoft PowerToys v0.101 lands stable with on-device AI, per-app window switching, and a formalized Insider channel
Microsoft has officially pushed PowerToys v0.101 to stable, rounding out a rapid eight-day preview sprint with a feature set that feels like two releases in one. The jump from v0.91 to v0.101 is massive. Microsoft shipped seven preview builds between August 12 and August 21 before calling this one stable on August 25. That compressed cycle suggests the team finally worked through a backlog that’s been growing since the last stable drop back in May.
The headline draw is Window Hopper. Think of it as Alt+Tab, but scoped to a single application. Activate it with Alt + backtick and you can flip through browser windows, terminal sessions, or editor instances without dragging your focus across unrelated apps. There’s no native OS-level equivalent for this on Windows, which is why macOS users have been asking for it for years. It fills that gap cleanly.
Advanced Paste now runs Microsoft’s Phi Silica model directly on your machine. No API keys. No cloud handoff. You check the setting, let the model download if it isn’t already, and you can mix local and cloud providers depending on the task. It’s a clear signal of where Microsoft is heading with Copilot+ hardware, and the no-connectivity-required angle removes the usual friction for mainstream users.
Command Palette gets an opt-in compact mode. It opens as a slim search box and only expands when you start typing. It also ships with improved search ranking, better extension notifications, and a new performance monitor metric for disk activity. On top of that, the update settings now offer a proper Stable/Insider split, configurable right in Settings > General > Update channel. Insiders get nightly builds; enterprises can still lock previews via policy.
The rest of the utility belt
Quick Accent and Mouse Jump have both crossed over to the WinUI 3 foundation. Quick Accent adds a press-and-hold activation mode with DPI-aware multi-monitor support. Mouse Jump gets ARM64 support and cleaner number-key monitor selection. Elsewhere, ZoomIt can now mirror your screen to a second display, PowerDisplay finally gives you a single slider for linked monitor brightness, and FancyZones supports arrow-key window rotation. Shortcut Guide adds app coverage for Obsidian, Godot, and 1Password, while Mouse Without Borders rounds out the security side with stronger session-key derivation.
Behind the scenes, the team is leaning heavily on AI for its own workflow. Agentic triage now scans new issues, flags duplicates, and tracks author feedback cycles. Preview builds ship through an automated pipeline with exact build identity verification. Community reactions on the preview builds have stayed consistently around 20 per release, and the project maintains its position as one of Microsoft’s top GitHub stars.
It’s a heavy release for a utility suite. Mixing local AI, compact UI modes, and expanded per-app window management in a single stable drop is ambitious. Not cheap in terms of development bandwidth, though the WinUI 3 modernization does make the long-term maintenance picture cleaner. The lack of a native OS-level per-app switcher still stings, but Window Hopper does a competent job of bridging the gap until Microsoft inevitably builds it into the OS itself.
You can grab the stable installers directly from the GitHub release page. The x64 and ARM64 installers are available for both per-user and machine-wide setups, with full SHA-256 hashes published alongside. If you want to test upcoming features, switch your update channel to Insider after installing.
