Software update: PowerToys 0.56.1

Microsoft has released version 0.56.1 of PowerToys. The PowerToys are a collection of small programs for power users. There were PowerToys for Windows 95 and Windows XP and since mid-2019 Microsoft has also been developing a version for Windows 10 and higher. The PowerToys currently consist of wake† Color Picker† FancyZones† File Explorer Add-ons† Image Resizer† Keyboard Manager† PowerRename† PowerToys Run† Shortcut Guide and the Video Conference Mute, which is no longer offered as experimental from version 0.49. The changelog for this release shows the following changes and improvements:

Highlights

• Upgrade notes! A big feedback item for new versions was upgrade notes. We have the release notes on GitHub as well.
• FancyZones zone limit has been increased to 128 zones. Before the limit was 40.
• Timezone conversion plugin for PowerToys Run!
• Child and Popup window support for FancyZones. To enable, go to Settings→FancyZones→Windows. These were bugs we fixed that without realizing it was a useful feature to most.
• Find my mouse will now activate via shaking the mouse with a settings change!

Always on Top

• Fixed excess GPU / CPU usage when enabled
• If border has focus, not closable via F4
• Changing border sizes should resize correctly for existing windows
• Border goes away with Outlook modal windows

ColorPicker

• No longer crashes during theme change

FancyZones

• Increased zone limit from 40 to 128.
• Child and Popup window support for FancyZones. To enable, go to Settings→FancyZones→Windows. These were bugs we fixed that without realizing it was a useful feature to most.

file explorer

• Fixes for Dev file preview:
  • Fix fix for object reference not set.
  • Fix for encoding UTF-8.
  • Fix for file is in use.
  • Fix for saying the file is too big.

Image Resizer

• Fix for invalid operation error.

mouse utility

• Find my mouse will now activate via shaking the mouse with a settings change!
• Find my mouse now can excludes apps.
• Fix for crosshair thickness looking odd due to anti-aliasing
• Fix for a hard crash on crosshair (This was a hotfix for 0.55)

PowerRename

• Won’t spells check file names anymore.
• Autocomplete result box to not obscure apply button.
• regex fix

PowerToys Run

• Timezone conversion plugin for PowerToys Run!
• Hexadecimal and binary numbers now are supported in the calculator plugin. This was added a bit ago.
• Terminal plugin performance boost.
• Terminal will now be found via the Program plugin again.
• Shutdown command is now using hybrid fast argument for shutting down
• Support for VSCodium with VS Code workplace plugin.

Video conference mute

• nVidia Broadcast software won’t crash anymore

Settings

• Upgrade notes in OOBE
• Fix for settings being lost (This was a hotfix for 0.55)
• UX improvements.

Installer

• Believe we have a fix for the long hated “app.dark.png is missing” error.
• Installer will launch PowerToys under appropriate elevation versus Admin only due to UAC prompt for installation (This was a hotfix for 0.55)
• PowerToys will now start if installed under different user

Development

• ARM64 – We removed the last .NET Framework dependency.
• .NET 6 upgrade, now on the newest and hottest .NET runtime
• Code analyzers have been upgraded!
• Symbols are back!
• Code refactoring.
• We are now on VS 2022 with the .NET 6 upgrade.