June 27, 2026
PowerToys Memory Leaks: What NJ Businesses Should Know
June 27, 2026
Most small business owners I talk to assume their employees are just running Word, Outlook, and maybe a browser with fifteen tabs open. But a lot of Windows machines, especially ones set up by IT-savvy users, are also running background utilities. PowerToys is one of the more popular ones.
PowerToys is a free Microsoft toolkit that adds useful features to Windows. Things like FancyZones for snapping windows into custom layouts, a color picker, a bulk file renamer, and a quick launcher called PowerToys Run. It's genuinely useful, and a lot of developers and power users install it quietly without IT even knowing.
Microsoft just pushed a bug fix update that resolves memory leaks in some of these utilities. A memory leak sounds technical, but the practical effect is simple: an app slowly eats up more and more RAM over time without releasing it. Your computer starts to feel sluggish, apps take longer to open, and eventually someone calls me saying their machine is "acting weird."
The PowerToys fix itself isn't a crisis. But it points to something I see constantly with small and mid-size businesses in New Jersey: shadow IT. That's the stuff employees install on their own, outside of any formal approval or monitoring process.
PowerToys is pretty benign. But the same habit that leads someone to install PowerToys also leads them to install a sketchy PDF converter they found on Google, or a browser extension that hoovers up login credentials. When there's no visibility into what's running on your endpoints, you're flying blind.
I've walked into businesses with 20 or 30 machines where nobody had a clear list of what was installed on them. That's not unusual. It's actually the norm for companies that haven't invested in endpoint management.
If you're using Microsoft 365 Business Premium, you already have access to Intune, Microsoft's device management platform. With Intune, you can see every app installed across your fleet, push updates, and set policies that restrict what users can install without approval. Most small businesses I work with aren't using it, even though they're paying for it.
Windows Update for Business is another tool that's often ignored. It lets you control when and how Windows updates roll out across your organization. Instead of updates hitting every machine randomly at 9 a.m. on a Monday, you can stagger them, test on a few machines first, and avoid the chaos of everyone rebooting at once.
For something like the PowerToys update, the fix will come through Windows Update or through the Microsoft Store depending on how it was installed. If you're managing devices properly, you'd know which machines have it and confirm the update landed. If you're not, you're just hoping.
Here's what I'd actually recommend if you're a business owner or IT manager reading this.
First, do an app audit. Pull a software inventory from your machines. If you're using Intune, this takes about ten minutes. If you're not, tools like Ninite or even a basic PowerShell script can give you a list. Know what's running.
Second, make sure Windows Update is actually working. It sounds obvious, but I've seen machines in businesses that hadn't received a Windows update in eight months because someone turned off automatic updates to stop the reboots. That's a real exposure.
Third, if your team uses PowerToys or similar utilities, check that the latest version is installed. The memory leak patches in this update are the kind of thing that keeps machines running well over a full workday, especially on older hardware with 8GB of RAM.
None of this is complicated. It's mostly about having a process and actually following through on it. The businesses I see with the fewest IT headaches aren't running exotic tools. They're just consistent about the basics.
If you're not sure where your endpoints stand right now, Exine works with small and mid-size businesses across New Jersey and New York City to get that visibility in place and keep it there.
