PowerToys is a set of tools aimed at Windows power users, adding lots of useful features like advanced paste, crop and lock, and so much more. Meanwhile, WinGet (also known as the Windows Package Manager) is a way to install and manage your applications on your PC, without needing to use third-party tools. It's a text-based application (though there are tools like WinGetUI to make it usable as a regular application), but you'll soon be able to use WinGet through PowerToys, and I couldn't be happier.

WinGet makes installing applications easier

And PowerToys is a must-have for Windows enthusiasts

Kayla Cinnamon, a senior product manager at Microsoft, demonstrated in a post how PowerToys will soon get WinGet integration thanks to a new utility, so that you can install applications on your PC directly with PowerToys Run. Cinnamon shows how you can invoke PowerToys Run to then scroll down to select WinGet, which you can then type to search in the next field to choose what to install.

WinGet is primarily a CLI-based application, and while there are those aforementioned graphical alternatives, installing something like WinGetUI is yet another application to install amongst a whole host of enthusiast-level utilities. This means that users who use both PowerToys and WinGetUI might not even need to use WinGetUI anymore if they're comfortable just installing with PowerToys.

The utility shown also gives full details about the package being installed, with the description, author, license, and release notes easily available. There's no additional requirements from the user to install an application through this, as it has all of the same capabilities of WinGet, just accessed via PowerToys instead.

WinGet is a powerful package manager but can scare some people off because it uses the command line, which is where tools like WinGetUI come in handy. The WinGet repository is pretty huge, and it can also pull from the Microsoft Store, too.

While some might argue that Chocolatey or Scoop is a better alternative overall, WinGet is built into Windows and has the vast majority of packages that you'll want to install. Enthusiasts will undoubtedly want an alternative in most cases, but using the first-party tool built-in to Windows if you can is typically preferred just for compatbiility and ease of use.

PowerToys is a must-have for any enthusiast

And this only solidifies it

If you're an enthusiast, PowerToys is an essential program you need to install on your Windows PC. While PowerToys Run works in a similar way on the surface to Alfred on Mac, adding WinGet to PowerToys Run means that you can use a keybind to invoke it and instantly install an application of your choosing.

While you won't use it a lot once you have all of your programs installed, it's something I'm incredibly excited for just for the ease of using it. I use Scoop on my PC, and I use Homebrew on my Mac, and this will be a nice quick way to install some applications as I need them. Even if you don't use this particular feature when it's launched, the other utilities in PowerToys are worth using too.