Microsoft Power Toys with Fancy Zones

FULL VIDEO REVIEW:

In this video, we talk about Microsoft Power Toys with Fancy
Zones. Microsoft Power toys is a suite of utilities that allow for increased
functionality and productivity. In this video we will mainly focus on one of
the utilities called Fancy Zones, which allows you to split your screen into different
groupings and yes it also allows you to continue to use your Windows Key +
Arrow keys to move between grids and across multiple monitors. If that was not enough
it also allows you to have different grid pattern arrangements on different monitors.
Microsoft Power Toys can be a bit overwhelming for the unintended so to that
effect I’m gong to take a little longer in this video to walk you step by step
for what you need to do.

One more pro tip: Samsung has a utility that does something similar
called Easy Settings Box, I use them in conjunction with Fancy Zones so I can
get more choices per monitor without have to reassign zones. I have a video on Easy
Setting Box that I’ll leave as a reference on our blog post for this topic. However,
if I had to pick just one I would pick Microsoft Power Toys with Fancy Zones because
it gives you far more customization and works with windows keyboard shortcuts
and does not have a issue that Easy Settings Box develops from time to time
which is it finds the wrong display so for the display you have setup as display
2 it will pick it as display 3 and so forth but I do not believe it is an issue
only to Easy Setting box I think that has to do with if you are switching
inputs it loses track of the original input and instead of checking display
settings it takes a disordered input number, but I have seen the same when sharing
zoom screens so it is something more inherent. However, Microsoft Power Toys
with Fancy Zones does not use displays in that manner, so it works more
efficiently.

Author’s Notes:

IMPORTANT:

How To Steps

In a browser window, navigate to: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/install
Visit the Microsoft PowerToys GitHub releases page by clicking on “Install PowerToys
Select the Assets drop-down menu to display the files for the release.
Select the PowerToysSetup-0.##.#-x64.exe file to download the PowerToys executable installer.
Once downloaded, open the executable file and follow the installation prompts.
Once Microsoft Power Toys installs open up the application
Click on Fancy Zones on the left
Under Windows Behavior: select “Move newly created windows to there last know zone”
Under Windows Snap: Enable it then click on “Move windows between zones across all monitors”
Create the custom zones that you would like or watch our youtube video to get some ideas on the zones we have created.
Click on Launch layout editor click the little pencil button to the top light of all each of the templates and set the “Space Around Zones” to 0.
Still inside Launch layout editor at the top you will see the monitors you have attached to the machine click each monitor and set the layout you want for the grid pattern for that monitor, and repeat process with each attached monitor.
Accept your changes and move forward.
Test it out by holding down the SHIFT key and dragging any window.
Test it out by using the Windows Key + Arrow keys and verify it snaps to the grids.
IF you want to couple (they pair well to together or additional functionality) this with Samsung Easy Setting Box then look my blog post on it at: Samsung Easy Setting Box