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 includes a new utility called Crop And Lock, it allows you to select an application and crop it into a smaller window or thumbnail. Keyboard manager now supports Numpad, FancyZones contains code improvements and refactor and more.
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
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 (
.) 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
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.
