PowerToys version 0.27 out with a bunch of improvements and bug fixes

[harlan4096]

Microsoft PowerToys v0.62.1:

This is a patch release to fix issues in v0.62.0 to fix some bugs we deemed important for stability based on incoming rates. See v0.62.0 for full release notes.

• #20297 - Fixed an issue causing a bug report to not be generated for some users, due to trying to include logs from a folder that might not exist yet.
  
• #20367 - Fixed an issue that made Quick Accent cause Keyboard Manager to not work correctly.
  
• #20430, #20450 and #20532 - Added more resilient exit code for background C# processes which were causing crashes being reported when upgrading PowerToys or the .NET runtimes.
  

Download

[harlan4096]

Microsoft PowerToys v0.63.0

Highlights

• QuickAccent contains a new setting to select a language. This should reduce the number of accented characters a user needs to pick from. Thanks @damienleroy!
  
• Reduced installer (125 MB in 0.62.1 compared to 83 MB in 0.63.0) and installed (817 MB in 0.62.1 compared to 587 MB in 0.63.0) sizes by sharing the Windows App SDK, VC++ redistributable and PowerToys Interop runtime files between utilities. This is a step towards removing the UAC requirement on install. The next step is shipping .NET self-contained and shared between utilities.
  

Known issues

• The Text Extractor utility fails to recognize text in some cases on ARM64 devices running Windows 10.
  
• After installing PowerToys, the new Windows 11 context menu entries for PowerRename and Image Resizer might not appear before a system restart.
  
• There are reports of users who are unable to open the Settings window. This is being caused by incompatibilities with some applications (RTSS RivaTuner Statistics Server and MSI AfterBurner are known examples of this). If you're affected by this, please check the linked issue to verify if any of the presented solutions works for you.
  

General

• Fixed an issue that caused bug report generation to fail. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  
• Updated the Windows App SDK runtimes to 1.1.5.
  

Always on Top

• Fixed an issue causing the border to linger when moving a window between virtual desktops.
  
• The minimum thickness for the borders is now 1. Thanks @unuing!
  
• Borders were showing in Virtual Desktop thumbnails. These were removed.
  
• Corrected the borders visuals to more closely follow the application borders.
  

Awake

• Fixed utility exit logic to close all threads and avoid crashes. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  

Color Picker

• Fixed utility exit logic to close all threads and avoid crashes. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  
• Fixed initialization error that caused the mouse position to be incorrectly set.
  

FancyZones

• Fixed FancyZones Editor exit logic to close all threads and avoid crashes. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  

File explorer add-ons

• Updated the WebView 2 dependency to 1.0.1343.22. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
  
• Fixed preview of .reg files.
  

Image Resizer

• Fixed a bug causing File Explorer to crash under some conditions when accessing the context menu.
  

PowerToys Run

• Added support to opening Terminal windows in quake mode. Thanks @FWest98!
  
• Fixed utility exit logic to close all threads and avoid crashes. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  
• Improve the icon shown in the Program plugin for application execution aliases. Thanks @MikeBarker-MSFT!
  
• Fix calls to the default browser when Firefox is installed from the Microsoft Store.
  
• Fixed accessibility issue in which controls appended to the result entries weren't announced.
  
• Search was improved and should now return results where the terms in the query appear at the end of the result.
  

Quick Accent

• Improved the keyboard hooks performance. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing Quick Accent to interfere with Keyboard Manager. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  
• Added the correct ß uppercase character. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
  
• Accent character selection should now wrap around. Thanks @wmentha!
  
• Added language selection setting to reduce the number of accented characters shown. The available languages are Currency, Czech, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Maori, Pinyin, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian, Spanish and Turkish. Thanks @damienleroy!
  

Screen Ruler

• Improved UI/UX and settings descriptions.
  
• Fixed utility exit logic to close all threads and avoid crashes. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  

Settings

• UI icons updated. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
  
• Descriptions improvement and disambiguation. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
  
• Fixed checkbox margins and other design tweaks. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
  

Text Extractor

• Removed extra spaces when recognizing Chinese, Japanese or Korean languages. Thanks @TheJoeFin!
  
• Fixed utility exit logic to close all threads and avoid crashes. (This was a hotfix for 0.62)
  
• Fixed an issue where a selection would start on right-click.
  

Installer

• Added logic to exit PowerToys on upgrade before trying to update .NET.
  
• Updated the .NET dependency to 6.0.9.
  
• Added clearer installation step names for the bootstrapper. Thanks @htcfreek and @Jay-o-Way!
  
• Windows App SDK, VC++ redistributable and PowerToys Interop runtime files are now shared between utilities through hardlinks, reducing installation size.
  

Documentation

• Fixed typos in Keyboard Manager documentation. Thanks @eltociear!
  
• Replaced docs.microsoft.com links with learn.microsoft.com. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
  

Development

• Fixed a build error that was restricting developers to switch between configuration without first cleaning local build files.
  
• C++ exception catches were corrected to be caught by reference to avoid unnecessary copy operations. Thanks @NN---!
  
• General C# code clean up, format fixing and removal of unused code analysis suppressions.
  
• Removed unnecessary
  Code:

  muxc
  prefix from XAML files. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
  
• Re-enabled tests on our pipeline that depend on WebView2.
  
• Windows 11 tier 1 context menu packages now contain the "Microsoft.PowerToys" prefix.
  

Download

[harlan4096]

Here is the full changelog for PowerToys 0.64.0:

Highlights:

• New utility: File Locksmith allows seeing which processes are currently using the selected files.
  
• New utility: Hosts File Editor allows you to edit your hosts file in an Editor UI.
  
• Settings has a new feature for backing up / restoring the settings from a file.
  
• FancyZones allows you to set defaults for horizontal/vertical screens to get better intended behavior for new screens and cases where a monitor ID resets.
  
• PowerToys ships with Group Policy Objects settings for force disabling and enabling PowerToys utilities in organizations. Check the GPO docs for more details.
  
• Added a warning about deprecating Video Conference Mute in the future (v0.67), please check #21473 for more information.
  

Known Issues:

• The Text Extractor utility fails to recognize text in some cases on ARM64 devices running Windows 10.
  
• After installing PowerToys, the new Windows 11 context menu entries for PowerRename and Image Resizer might not appear before a system restart.
  
• There are reports of users who are unable to open the Settings window. This is being caused by incompatibilities with some applications (RTSS RivaTuner Statistics Server is a known examples of this). If you're affected by this, please check the linked issue to verify if any of the presented solutions works for you.
  

Always on Top

• Detect and put a window on top again if it's no longer on top.
  

Color Picker

• Added the hexadecimal integer format.
  

FancyZones

• Added a way for users to configure default layouts for horizontal and vertical screens.
  
• Replaced remaning Number Boxes in FancyZones Editor with Sliders, to improve accessibility for screen readers.Fixed an issue breaking window switching shortcuts.
  

File Locksmith

• Added a new utility: File Locksmith.
  

Group Policy Objects

• Group Policy Objects settings for force disabling and enabling PowerToys utilities.
  

Hosts File Editor

• Added a new utility: Hosts File Editor.
  

Keyboard Manager

• Fixed a delay that was not being cancelled properly. Thanks @AtariDreams!
  

Mouse Utilities

• Changed the opacity setting to the 1-100 range.
  

PowerToys Run

• Changed image loading to release the images in PowerToys Run main executable. This is a try to fix the "app.dark.png" missing issues received after a PowerToys update.
  
• Fixed the PowerToys Run hiding after the default action failed.
  
• Fixed the PowerToys Run allows showing after a context menu action succeeded.
  

Quick Accent

• Corrected "Dutch" word to "German".
  
• Added the Portuguese language accents.
  
• Fixed positioning of toolbar on scaled desktops.
  

Screen Ruler

• Improved the acrylic brush used in the menu. Thanks @niels9001!
  

Settings

• Added a feature to backup/restore settings to/from a file.
  
• Fixed an issue causing shortcuts shown in OOBE not updating to new values when the window was re-opened.
  
• Fixed the "Documents" folder usage in the backup/restore feature.
  

Text Extractor

• Added a warning about how to install languages for OCR recognition.
  
• Fixed the overlay not focusing after the first activation.
  
• Added spaces between CJK and non-CKJ words.
  

Video Conference Mute

• Added a setting to hide the Video Conference Mute overlay when muted.
  
• Added a warning about deprecating Video Conference Mute in the future (v0.67), please check #21473 for more information.
  

Installer

• Added some missing files that were causing Settings and PowerRename to not function correctly on some configurations.
  
• Updated the .NET dependency to 6.0.10.
  

Development

• Consolidated nuget packages and removed a few unused packages.
  
• Updated the Windows.CppRT to the latest version.
  
• Removed the cxxopts dependency, which was no longer used.
  
• Updated the cziplob dependency to 0.25.
  
• Updated the System.IO.Abstractions dependency.
  
• Turned on C++ code analysis and incrementally fixing warnings.
  
• Added the install method to the issue template on GitHub, since some issues seem to be related to specific installation methods.
  
• Automated installer hash creation in the release CI.
  
• Simplified use of .First() on ImageResizer.
  
• Improved and clarified the issues templates.
  
• Fixed a PTRun unit test to be more compatible with .NET 6.
  

You can download PowerToys 0.64.0 from the Microsoft Store or GitHub.

[harlan4096]

Here are the highlights of the update:

• The codebase was upgraded to work with .NET 7.
  
• Quick Accent can now show a description of the selected character.
  
• ColorPicker now supports adding custom formats.
  

 Here are the known issues:

• The Text Extractor utility fails to recognize text in some cases on ARM64 devices running Windows 10.
  
• After installing PowerToys, the new Windows 11 context menu entries for PowerRename and Image Resizer might not appear before a system restart.
  
• There are reports of users who are unable to open the Settings window. This is being caused by incompatibilities with some applications (RTSS RivaTuner Statistics Server is a known examples of this). If you're affected by this, please check the linked issue to verify if any of the presented solutions works for you.
  

And here is your in-depth changelog with improvements and changes for the existing toys:

General

• Downgraded the ModernWPF dependency to 0.9.4 to avoid issues on certain virtualization technologies. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  
• Upgraded and fixed the code to work with .NET 7. Thanks @snickler!
  

Always on Top

• Added telemetry for the pinning/unpinning events.
  

Awake

• Added telemetry.
  
• Removed exiting Awake from the tray icon when starting from the runner. Utilities started from the runner should be disabled in the Settings to avoid discrepancies.
  

Color Picker

• Fixed an infinite loop due to a looping UI refresh. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  
• Added a feature to allow users to create their own color formats.
  

FancyZones

• Fixed an issue that caused turning off spaces between zones to not apply correctly. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  
• Prevent the shift key press from trickling down to the focused window.
  
• Fixed a bug causing FancyZones to try resizing hidden windows.
  
• Fixed the focus layout preview being empty on first run in the editor.
  
• Fixed UI margin in the "Create new layout" dialog.
  
• Fixed window positioning issues when switching between virtual desktops.
  
• Fixed snapping by hotkey in single zone layouts.
  

File explorer add-ons

• Added .log file support to the Monaco preview handler.
  

File Locksmith

• Query system and other users processes when elevated. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  
• Icon and UI fixes. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  

Group Policy Objects

• Removed a obsolete dependency from the admx file to fix importing on Intune. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  

Hosts File Editor

• Added a scrollbar to the additional lines dialog.(This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  
• Updated the plus icon.(This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  
• Prevent the new entry content dialog from overlapping the title bar.
  
• Updated the name for the additional lines feature.
  
• Added a workaround for an issue causing the context menu not opening on right-click.
  

Image Resizer

• Fixed a silent crash when trying to show the tier 1 context menu on Windows 11.
  

PowerToys Run

• Added pinyin support to the search.
  
• Fixed an error in the TimeZone plugin preventing searching for standard time zones.
  
• Added the English abbreviations as fallbacks in the UnitConverter plugin.
  

Quick Accent

• Added mappings for the mu, omicron, upsilon and thorn characters.
  
• Added a setting to exclude apps from activating Quick Accent.
  
• Fixed an issue causing the selector to trigger when leaving the lock screen.
  
• Added the Croatian, Netherlands, Swedish and Welsh character sets.
  
• Added support for more unicode characters.
  
• Shift-space can now navigate backwards in the selector.
  
• Added the Catalan accented characters.
  
• Added the Kurdish accented characters.
  
• Added the Serbian accented characters.
  
• Added the Irish and Scottish accented characters.
  
• Added the description for the currently selected character in the selector.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the selector window to appear blank.
  

Runner

• Fixed a crash on a racing condition accessing the IPC communication with Settings.
  

Settings

• Fixed settings name in the QuickAccent page.
  
• Added a message indicating there's no network available when looking for updates.
  
• Fixed an error causing the backup/restore feature to not find the backup file.
  
• Fixed localization for the "All apps" expression in the keyboard manager page.
  
• UI refactoring, clean-up and bringing in modern controls.
  
• Improved settings/OOBE screens text.
  
• The backup/restore feature also backs up FancyZones layouts.
  

Shortcut Guide

• Added a setting to make the shortcuts and taskbar icons have different configurable response times.
  

Video Conference Mute

• Changed the warning about deprecating Video Conference Mute to saying it's going to go into legacy mode, thanks to community feedback. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  

Documentation

• Added the core team to COMMUNITY.md
  

Development

• Fixed some errors in the GitHub issue templates.
  
• Updated the Windows implementation library.
  
• Added Hosts File Editor to the issue templates.
  
• Turned on C++ code analysis and incrementally fixing warnings.
  
• Cleaned up unused dependencies.
  
• Fixed building on the latest MSVC.
  
• Fixed multi-processor build on the latest MSBuild.
  
• Added a message to suggest the feedback hub to the fabric bot triggers.
  
• Optimized every png file with the zopfli algorithm.
  
• Updated the .vsconfig file for a quicker development setup.
  
• Fixed a language typo in the code.
  
• Fixed wrong x86 target in the solution file.
  
• Added a script to fail building when the nuget packages aren't consolidated.
  
• Upgraded the Vanara.Invoke dependencies.
  
• Upgraded and brought back the spell-checker.
  
• Added a new dependencies feed and fixed release CI.
  

You can download PowerToys from the Microsoft Store, winget, or its repository on GitHub.

[harlan4096]

PowerToys 0.66.0:

Version 0.66.0 is now available for download with numerous fixes, improvements, and minor changes. This release includes self-contained .NET 7, meaning it is no longer required to install it standalone before PowerToys works. If you were waiting for the fancy Quick Access launcher, then you'll have to wait for a future release, as it hasn't been added yet. But fortunately, there are no known issues with in release.

Here are the highlights of the update:

• PowerToy utilities now ship with self-contained .NET 7, meaning it's not necessary to install .NET as part of the installer and it's easier to keep up to date.
  
• It's possible to pick which of the installed OCR languages is used by Text Extractor by selecting it in the right-click context menu.
  
• Added a setting to sort the order of the accented characters by usage frequency in Quick Accent.
  

[harlan4096]

It is update time for those using PowerToys on Windows 10 and 11. Version 0.74 is now available for download with numerous fixes, and improvements. This version upgrades the Windows App SDK to 1.4.1, increasing stability of WinUI3 utilities, and introduces version 2.0 of Text Extractor. Finally, this release further improves FanzyZones stability, and fixes a number of bugs that are listed below.

Here are the highlights of the update:

• Upgraded to Windows App SDK 1.4.1, increasing stability of WinUI3 utilities. Thanks @dongle-the-gadget for starting the upgrade!
  
• Text Extractor was upgraded to its version 2.0, with a new overlay, table mode and more Quality of Life improvements. Thanks @TheJoeFin!
  
• Improved FancyZones stability, fixing some layout resets and improving handling of newly created windows on Windows 11.
  
• Fixed many silent crashes that were reported to Watson and the user's event viewer.
  

 And the full changelog is below:
 

General

• Turning animations off in Windows Settings will now also turn them off in PowerToys.
  
• Upgraded the Windows App SDK dependency to 1.4.1. Thanks @dongle-the-gadget for the original 1.4.0 upgrade!
  
• Show in the thumbnail label and application titles when running as administrator. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  
• Upgraded the Win UI Community Toolkit dependency to 8.0. Thanks @niels9001!
  

Awake

• Added down-sampled variants to the application's icon. Thanks @morriscurtis!
  

Color Picker

• After adding a new color in the editor, the history will scroll the new color into view. Thanks @peerpalo!
  

Crop and Lock

• Fixed a Crop and Lock crash that would occur when trying to reparent a window crashes the target application. An error message is shown instead.
  

FancyZones

• Set the process and main thread priority to normal.
  
• Fixed handling newly created windows on Windows 11.
  
• Fixed scenarios where opening the FancyZones Editor would reset the layouts.
  

File Explorer add-ons

• Optimized CPU usage for generating SVG thumbnails.
  
• Improved handling of Gcode Thumbnails, including JPG and QOI formats. Thanks @pedrolamas!
  
• Better handled errors when sending telemetry, which were causing reported crashes.
  
• Fixed some thumbnails not being shown centered like before the optimization.
  

File Locksmith

• Shows files opened by processes with PID greater than 65535. Thanks @poke30744!
  
• Fixed a GDI object leak in the context menu which would crash Explorer.
  

Find My Mouse

• Added new activation methods, including by hotkey. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  

Hosts File Editor

• Ignore the default ACME sample entries in the hosts file. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  
• Improved save error handling and added better error messages. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  
• Corrected a check for an error when signaling the application to start as administrator.
  
• Refactored the context menu. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  
• Fixed dialogs overlapping the title bar after the upgrade to Windows App SDK 1.4. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  

Keyboard Manager

• Distinguish between the regular minus key and the numpad minus key.
  

Mouse Without Borders

• Fixed a crash when trying to restart the application.
  

Peek

• Using Peek on HTML files will show a white background by default, similar to a browser's default behavior.
  
• Fix a white flash on Dark theme when switching file and improved the development file preview detection and adjustments.
  

PowerRename

• Fixed a crash caused by big counter values on the new enumeration method.
  

PowerToys Run

• It's now possible to select which shell is used by the Shell plugin.
  
• A combobox option type was added to the plugin options.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Calculator plugin that was causing decimal numbers to be misinterpreted on locales where the dot (
  Code:

  .
  ) character isn't used as a decimal or digit separator.
  
• Improved the Program plugin stability when it fails to load a program's thumbnail at startup.
  
• The use of Pinyin for querying some plugins can now be turned on in Settings. Thanks @ChaseKnowlden!
  
• Refactored option types for plugin and added number, string and composite types to be used in the future. Thanks @htcfreek!
  
• Fixed the entry for searching for Windows updates in the Settings plugin. Thanks @htcfreek!
  

Quick Accent

• The "All languages" character set is now calculated by programmatically querying the characters for every available language. Thanks @dannysummerlin!
  
• Added é to the Norwegian and Swedish languages. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
  
• Added a runtime cache to the "All languages" character set, to only calculate accents once per key.
  

Registry Preview

• Fixed focusing issues at startup.
  
• Improved the data visualization to show data in a similar way to the Windows Registry Editor. Thanks @dillydylann!
  

Runner

• Fixed hanging when a bug report was generated from the flyout. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  

Settings

• Improved the way the OOBE window reacts to Windows theme change.
  
• Fixed an issue that made it impossible to change the "Switch between windows in the current zone" "Next window" shortcut for FancyZones.
  
• Fixed a crash when entering a duplicate name for a color in the Color Picker page and improved clean up when cancelling a color edit. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  

Text Extractor

• Text Extractor 2.0, with a new overlay, table mode and more Quality of Life improvements. Thanks @TheJoeFin!
  

Documentation

• SECURITY.md was updated from 0.0.2 to 0.0.9. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
  
• Improved the README and main development document for clarity and completeness. Thanks @codeofdusk and @aprilbbrockhoeft!
  

Development

• Fixed PowerToys Run DateTime plugin tests that were failing depending on locale, so that they can be run correctly on all dev machines.
  
• Fixed PowerToys Run System plugin tests that were failing for certain network interfaces, so that they can be run correctly on all dev machines. Thanks @snickler!
  
• Fixed a markdown bug on the GitHub /helped command.
  
• Switched build pipelines to a new agent pool. Thanks @DHowett!
  
• New .cs files created in Visual Studio get the header added automatically. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  

You can download PowerToys from the Microsoft Store, winget (Command Prompt as Administrator and enter the command: winget install --id Microsoft.PowerToys, or its repository on GitHub.

[harlan4096]

Update Dec 7: Following Monday's 0.76 update, Microsoft has posted a patch update to fix issues deemed important for stability based on incoming rates.

The 0.76.1 Patch Update lists the following changes, and includes all of the changes from the 0.76 release.

• #30148 - Fixed issue causing FancyZones not to be able to zone specific apps (e.g. Facebook messenger).
  
• #30224 - Fixed results list height when changing maximum number of results to be shown setting for PowerToys Run.
  
• #30225 - Fixed WPF apps crash caused by SystemThemeWatcher.
  
• #30228 - Fixed loading .lnk files icons in PowerToys Run.
  
• #30237 - Fixed PowerToys Run theme setting.
  
• #30251 - Fixed suggestion text margin when text direction is right to left in PowerToys Run.
  

You can grab the update by checking for updates witin the app, on the Microsoft Store, or on GitHub.

[harlan4096]

PowerToys 0.76.2:

• #30357 - Fixed issue causing Wpf apps to crash or report error dialogs by using latest WPF-UI package version.
  
• #30370 - Workaround for WebView2 based preview and thumbnail handlers issue caused by WebView2 runtime latest update.
  

Download

[harlan4096]

PowerToys 0.79:

PowerToys 0.79 is now available for download. The latest release brings a few welcome changes, such as a redesigned Color Picker with Fluent UX, the ability to launch apps with keyboard shortcuts (spotted in development earlier in January), drive preview in Peek, and a lot of other improvements for existing utilities.

[harlan4096]

PowerToys 0.80:

PowerToys 0.80 is now available for download. The latest update introduces Desire State Configuration support, a newer version of Windows App SDK, WebP/WebM and audio support for Peek, and other changes for existing modules.