Quick Answer
Productivity Power Tools 2022 is an extension pack for Visual Studio 2022 that installs a suite of individual components designed to improve your productivity across the IDE. You can install it from the Visual Studio Marketplace and later enable or disable each component individually via Tools > Extensions and Updates.
What It Is
Productivity Power Tools (PPT) 2022 is a pack that installs each of the individual components for Visual Studio 2022. Microsoft introduced this suite to boost developer productivity for the Visual Studio 2022 release. The pack is available from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
Included Components
Based on the Marketplace listing, the pack installs the following components:
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Align Assignments 2022 | Adds a command to align assignments |
| Double-Click Maximize 2022 | Double-click window headers to maximize and dock them |
| Copy As Html 2022 | Copies code as HTML for pasting into blogs, etc. |
| Fix Mixed Tabs 2022 | Fixes mixed tab/space indentation |
| Match Margin 2022 | Highlights text in code and shows all occurrences in the editor margin |
| Middle-Click Scroll 2022 | Allows middle-click scrolling |
| Peek Help 2022 | Shows help in peek (inline) view |
| Shrink Empty Lines 2022 | Compresses runs of empty lines |
| Solution Error Visualizer 2022 | Shows errors in Solution Explorer |
| Time Stamp Margin 2022 | Displays timestamps in the output window margin |
The Match Margin component, for example, lets you move your cursor to a symbol and see all its occurrences in the editor margin.
How to Install
- Go to the Productivity Power Tools 2022 page on the Visual Studio Marketplace.
- Click Download or Install.
- The extension pack installer will install each of the individual components.
- You can disable or uninstall individual components via Tools > Extensions and Updates.
- Match Margin if you frequently need to see all occurrences of a symbol in the current file.
- Align Assignments if you work with many variable assignments.
- Solution Error Visualizer to see errors at a glance without building.
- Double-Click Maximize for easier window management.
- All-at-once installation: The pack saves time by installing all components in one go.
- Individual control: You can enable or disable any component later.
- Match Margin is a standout feature for code navigation.
- Options Page provides additional customization.
Productivity Power Tools Options Page
A separate extension, Productivity Power Tools Options Page 2022, adds a new page under Tools > Options for fine-grained control over the behavior of some components.
Practical Decision Framework
After installation, use this framework to decide which components to keep enabled. The goal is to avoid feature overload while maximizing productivity gains.
Step 1: Install the pack. Install the entire Productivity Power Tools 2022 pack from the Marketplace.
Step 2: Disable components you don't need. Go to Tools > Extensions and Updates, find each component, and disable it if you won't use it. This keeps your IDE lighter and reduces potential conflicts.
Step 3: Enable components that match your workflow. Consider enabling:
Step 4: Fine-tune with the Options Page. If you need deeper control, install the Productivity Power Tools Options Page 2022 extension to access the Options page under Tools > Options.