If you've been on the Windows platform for as long as I have, which is, to say, a little over a decade, you'd already know that getting things right the first time isn't really Microsoft's forte. That's something that has been true since Windows Vista, then Windows 8, then the time they rolled out Cortana... the list goes on. Botching, rolling back, and patching has become Microsoft's signature style lately.

One of the things it still doesn't get right is how it prioritizes its bloatware and adware during installation over a suite of life-changing tools called PowerToys. These utilities are constantly updated, and honestly, I would've appreciated them infinitely more than the sketchy Recall or Copilot currently haunting my taskbar. Here are the features that should've been a part of the native Windows 11 experience.

CursorWrap makes cursor movement immensely intuitive

A feature so simple it had no business being an add-on

CursorWrap mouse utility came out as a part of PowerToys version 0.97 just a few weeks ago, and it does something so obvious that it's almost a little embarrassing it took so long. When you enable it via PowerToys and hit the key combination to activate it, you can move your cursor off one edge of the screen and have it emerge from the opposite side. Your display effectively becomes borderless. No boundaries, no lifting the mouse to reposition, and just fluid movement across the desktop real estate.

It's simple, elegant, and delightful to use, which perhaps explains why Microsoft overlooked it in the favor of more adware. The feature is based on common sense behind mouse movement, and that's why, from the moment you turn it on, it feels like it should've always been there. It might take a little while getting used to it, though, especially if you're used to the cursors hitting the edge and have been working with a mouse that way all your life.

Command Palette is what Windows Search should have been

It's impossible to go back from it once you get the hang of it

I've lost count of how many times I've used the Windows Search bar looking for a local file, only to be handed a Bing search for it instead. This also applied to diagnosing an issue on the PC as well, since some of the built-in troubleshooting links in Settings would also somehow lead me back to Bing. But I digress.

Native search has always been a bit of a disappointment on Windows, and the solution to it seems to be available via PowerToys that somehow Microsoft never bothered with. I am, of course, speaking of Command Palette, which was improved recently in version 0.97.

Since enabling the feature, it has become my default way to look up almost anything on the desktop, and even run a few tasks that I never could with Search. I can launch exactly the app I'm looking for, run PowerShell or Terminal scripts, and even open programs with administrative privileges without ever having to touch the arduous right-click menu. There's even an integrated calculator that does quick math on the bar as well.

Quick Accent would have saved me hours if it shipped with the OS

Spoiler alert: It absolutely did not ship with the OS

If you have ever tried to type a special character in Microsoft Office, you'd already be familiar with the problem I'm about to describe. For years, Microsoft expected me to memorize combinations like Alt + 0176 just to produce a degree symbol, which was a level of mental gymnastics I refused to get accustomed to. Every single time, I would give up and copy-paste the character from a browser.

It's one of the areas where Apple was undeniably quicker to solve the problem by allowing users to simply hold down a key to cycle through its variations, like holding down '0' to get the degree symbol. Quick Accent finally brought that sanity to the Windows platform. With the feature enabled, I can cycle through the variations near effortlessly, which has since eliminated the need for me to rely on a search and copy-pasting all the time. It only saves a couple of seconds, true, but it also removes the tremendous cognitive load that comes with it that breaks the operating rhythm of my workflow.

PowerToys continues to deliver solutions that should've shipped with the OS

It's truly strange that, even now, Microsoft relies entirely on a user's own awareness and technical prowess to seek out PowerToys just to fix basic OS shortcomings. The most essential, time-saving productivity features remain tucked away for us to discover, while the "out-of-the-box" experience seems lacking in more ways than one. Most users would likely be running an outdated version of PowerToys too, since the app doesn't always go out of the way to notify you that there's been a new release with new features to try out.

Despite the effort required, PowerToys does make Windows infinitely more usable for me. It's a non-negotiable on any Windows PC I use now, and the quality-of-life features are designed with the user in mind.