While Windows allows you to control the brightness of your screen when using a laptop, the same can't be said for desktop users who have monitors connected to their PC tower. This means that you have to use the physical buttons on your display, or third-party tools, to manage your screen's brightness.

However, a PowerToys tool introduced in April 2026, called Power Display, finally gives me the simple slider — as well as a few other features — that I wish Windows had built into the OS.

Controlling monitor brightness is one of my frustrations on my Windows desktop

It's a literal headache

Being able to customize my display brightness and warmth is an important feature because I developed chronic migraines a few years ago. This means that I have extreme sensitivity to bright screens, which gets worse when I'm experiencing a migraine. However, I also need to avoid bright screens to prevent triggering another attack.

Even with all my apps and web pages in dark mode, I need to reduce the brightness on the displays I use. On both my desktop PC and laptop, my displays are set to the minimum brightness. On my laptop I can adjust this with a built-in slider, but on my PC I need to use the physical buttons on my monitors. This can be a bit frustrating since these buttons and menus aren't as intuitive as a slider.

I've resorted to always having my displays at minimum brightness, but there are times when I need to take a photo of what's on my screen for articles. In these cases, I need to increase the brightness with the physical buttons once again, and then reduce the brightness once the photos are done.

I use two displays, each with different buttons and menus, which means this process significantly interrupts my workflow. But then I found out that the April 2026 version of PowerToys included a feature that would remove this hassle for me.

How to set up Power Display

It's relatively simple

Power Display is a utility within PowerToys that lets you control connected monitors using your system tray. Depending on whether your display supports it, you can use the tool to adjust the monitor's volume, brightness, contrast, and color profile.

To set up Power Display, you will need to enable it in PowerToys. Open PowerToys, make sure it's updated to the latest version, and scroll down to Power Display. Then select Open Settings and toggle the button next to Enable Power Display. Once you do this, you will be able to use the assigned keyboard shortcut to bring up Power Display's flyout from your system tray.

In the Settings menu, you can also set up different profiles and enable specific features for your monitors. But the available features will depend on what your monitor reports through DDC/CI. For example, an old monitor of mine did not work with Power Display at all. Another monitor allowed me to only adjust brightness, while another allowed me to select brightness, contrast, and the color temperature.

Since I'm mostly concerned with the brightness levels and warmth of my screens, I set up profiles for a normal mode (very warm, minimal brightness) and a bright mode (normal color temperature, 50% brightness). This means I can easily switch between the two profiles when I need to take photos for my articles.

PowerToys unlocks more functionality, but it should be a Windows feature

I don't understand why this isn't part of Windows 11

It's definitely handy having PowerToys around to further customize Windows, but I'd argue that this is the kind of feature that Microsoft should have built into Windows 11.

Microsoft describes PowerToys as a tool for power users, but being able to adjust the brightness of your connected displays from your UI isn't deep customization — it's a quality-of-life feature. It's also one that would help make the experience of switching between Windows on laptops and PCs more seamless.

Adjusting the color temperature with night light settings is possible, but it's somewhat buried. Bringing this to the system tray, along with brightness settings, could be extremely useful. It helps streamline the process for light-sensitive users like myself, but also people who are working at night or in rooms with changing light levels during the day.

I still have to rely on Pangobright to reduce the brightness of my display even further, past the minimum hardware settings, but this is a more niche function that is understandably not part of Windows. However, I may use PowerToys to replace other third-party tools like Flux that I've been using to customize my display appearance.

Display brightness sliders shouldn't be a power user feature

Power Display is a handy tool, but one that I think shouldn't be limited to PowerToys. Microsoft has all the ingredients it needs, so it's something I'd like to see in the main OS. There are plenty of task bar items I disable, but this is one of the things I'd be glad to see introduced.