You may make little programme windows using Microsoft's Crop and Lock function

 You may make little programme windows using Microsoft's Crop and Lock function

To make static live thumbnails or crop applications and interact with them in a small window, utilise the Crop and Lock functionality.

To its free PowerToys utility package, Microsoft has included a new feature called "Crop and Lock" that enables users to crop an app window to reveal the information they want to view or generate an interactive thumbnail.

Thumbnail and Reparent are the two options offered by the freshly added function. 'Reparent' allows you to choose a portion of a window and control it directly from the thumbnail, in contrast to the former which allows you to select a portion of the original window and produce a non-interactive thumbnail.

Users can access all cropped programmes without switching to them since they constantly stay on top of other windows.

How is the Crop and Lock function activated and used?

Download and install PowerToys 0.73.0 from the Microsoft website or GitHub, then launch it on your Windows-based computer to utilise "Crop and Lock." 'Enable Crop and Lock' may be found under the 'Crop and Lock' section; click it.

You may now pick the area you wish to crop by using the Thumbnail shortcut (Windows key+Ctrl+Shift+T) or the Reparent combination (Windows key+Ctrl+Shift+R) after the feature has been activated.

Depending on the option you selected, a new window will now open up enabling you to view a static or interactive view. If you find the preset shortcuts to be too complicated, Microsoft's PowerToys programme lets you tweak them.

According to Microsoft, the Thumbnail mode works with the majority of programmes, but if you wish to crop maximised or full-screen applications, you can run into problems with the Reparent option. Additionally, certain UWP apps—including those with tabs or sub-windows like Notepad—do not presently function effectively in "Reparent" mode.

The feature is part of Microsoft PowerToys, an open-sourced programme for power users that offers many functionalities like an capacity to create complex window layouts, resize images, bulk rename files.  It can be used on Windows 11 and Windows 10, and it is compatible with both operating systems.