Microsoft adds Crop and Lock to PowerToys. This is a new feature that allows you to select an application window. This selection is then only displayed in a new window.

Microsoft sucks Crop and lock in power toys. This is an advanced system for resizing windows. You can make a window larger or smaller in Windows, but basically this window always shows the entire content of an application. With crop and lock, you actually specify what part of an app you actually want to see and that part will appear in a small window.

Cropping and locking are in PowerToys. PowerToys is an application from Microsoft that extends the standard functionality of Windows with some useful features aimed at more experienced users. For example, you can quickly resize images or rename files in bulk in an advanced way. You can find PowerToys in the store.

Two options

The new Crop and Lock feature comes in two flavors: Thumbnail and New Parent. A thumbnail is best viewed as a live feed of a relevant portion of an application window and is non-interactive. A repair window is present, but it may not be compatible with all applications. Ironically, according to Microsoft itself, UWP apps are problematic.

If you have the latest version of PowerToys installed, you can create through a thumbnail window Windows + ctrl + layer + T. You choose a repair window Windows + ctrl + layer + R. Before you use the link, you must actively bring the corresponding window to the foreground. The functionality is useful, for example, if you want to keep an eye on something in the background, such as the progress of a download, without having to open the entire corresponding program.

The update is available via GitHub for those who have PowerToys, but the new functionality doesn’t seem to have rolled out to everyone in the store for now.