PowerToys for
Windows 95 was the first version of Microsoft PowerToys and included 15 tools for power users. It included
Tweak UI, a system utility for tweaking the more obscure settings in Windows. In most cases, Tweak UI exposed settings that were otherwise only accessible by directly modifying
Windows Registry.
Included components The following PowerToys for
Windows 95 were available: •
CabView opened
cabinet files like ordinary folders; •
CDAutoPlay made
AutoPlay work on any non-
audio CD; •
Command Prompt Here allowed the user to start a command prompt from any folder in
Windows Explorer by right-clicking (native in
Windows Vista onwards); •
Contents Menu allowed users to access folders and files from a
context menu without having to open their folders; •
Desktop Menu allowed users to open items on the desktop from a menu on the
Taskbar; •
Explore From Here enabled users to open
Windows Explorer view from any folder such so that the folder acts as the root level folder; •
FindX added drag-and-drop capabilities to Find (later called
Search) menu; •
FlexiCD allowed users to play an
audio CD from the Taskbar; •
Quick Res allowed users to quickly change the
screen resolution; •
Round Clock added an analog round clock without a square window; •
Send To X consisted of Shell extensions which added several commonly accessed locations such as
clipboard,
desktop,
command-line or any folder to the
Send To context menu in
Explorer; •
Shortcut Target Menu allowed users to access the target file a
shortcut is pointing to from the context menu or directly cut, copy, delete the target, create
shortcut to the target or view its properties; •
Telephony Location Selector allowed
mobile computer users to change their dialling location from the
Taskbar; •
TweakUI allowed the user to customize the more obscure settings of the operating system's
UI; •
Xmouse 1.2 made the
window focus follow the
mouse without requiring to click the
window to make it active. PowerToys for
Windows 95 were developed by the
Windows Shell Development Team. Some of the tools work on later versions of
Windows up to
Windows XP, but others may interfere with newer built-in features on
Windows 98,
ME, and
XP.
Windows 95 Kernel Toys After the success of the
Windows 95 PowerToys, the Windows
Kernel Development Team released another set of tools for power users called
Windows 95 Kernel Toys. Six tools were included in this package: •
MS-DOS Mode Configuration Wizard Customization Tool allowed users to configure Windows startup files without having to manually edit
CONFIG.SYS or
AUTOEXEC.BAT; •
Keyboard Remap reassigned functions to keys on the keyboard; •
Logo Key Control configured MS-DOS games so that Windows would ignore the
Windows logo key while games were running; •
Conventional Memory Tracker to track and break down the amount of memory being allocated by virtual device drivers; •
Windows Process Watcher (WinTop) monitored how much of
CPU resources were taken by individual programs; •
Time Zone Editor enabled the user to create and edit time zone entries for the Date/Time
Control Panel applet. According to
Raymond Chen, he wrote all of the Kernel Toys except for the
Time Zone Editor, which came from the
Windows NT Resource Kit. == PowerToys for Windows XP ==