Microsoft release PowerToys v0.51.1 with stability fixes

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Five days ago Microsoft today announced the release of v0.51.0 which introduces some new things regarding Microsoft’s mouse utilities. First Microsoft is added in a presentation mode helper to highlight your mouse when you click. Microsoft also added additional settings toward Find my mouse to enable more customization.

Microsoft has also been focusing work on “Always on Top” system to help make any window you want to be the topmost.

Unfortunately, that release had some stability issues, leading Microsoft to release a minor update, PowerToys v0.5.1.1 which fixes the following issues:

  • FancyZone losing layouts due to VirtualDesktopManager init
    • This issue appears to be due to FancyZones not starting up automatically when you boot up, due to a clash with Virtual Desktop Manager.
  • PowerToys Run due to duplicate older plugins
    • This second issue is where newer versions of PowerToys fail to remove older plugins, leading to plugins failing to start.

PowerToys v0.51.0 was of course quite a but release with the following changelog.

Change log

Things to note

  • Microsoft shifted their localization internal service and are working on adding automated integrations back in.

PowerToys Awake

  • System tray and settings use same language for turning things on.

Color Picker

  • New formats added to copy colours as a float or decimal value.
  • Adjust colour window now accepts lower-case HEX codes.

FancyZones

  • New window switching functionality! Now users can assign multiple windows to a zone and cycle between them using theย Winย +ย PgDn/PgUp commands by default.
  • Added functionality for zones to adopt system accent color and theme.
  • Added visual preview of zone appearance in settings menu.
  • Fixed bug where FancyZones crashes on launch.

Image Resizer

  • Fixed bug where resizing images creates empty folders.
  • Added option to remove non-essential metadata. Helps significantly reduce the size of files.
  • Fixed bug caused by Image Resizer receiving an unexpected property type or value.

Mouse utilities

  • Find My Mouse: Improved functionality to activate when user double click time configuration is set above 100ms.
  • Find My Mouse: Fixed display on all virtual desktops as opposed to only the virtual desktop where it was created.
  • Find My Mouse: New settings to enable a lot more customization based on your feedback.
  • Minor UI tweaks for fluent icons, appearance,ย Ctrl usage, and utility descriptions.
  • New Mouse Highlighter PowerToy! When enabled, activate mouse highlighting withย Winย +ย Shiftย +ย Hย by default to begin displaying visual cues on your display when either the left or right mouse buttons are clicked. There is a much more powerful tool calledย SysInternal ZoomItย that is very helpful as well.

highlighter turned on while dragging mouse

PowerRename

  • Improved rename performance! This is now at parity (or better) with the prior version based on multiple tests.
  • Added keyboard accelerators withย Enterย andย Ctrlย +ย Enter to execute rename.
  • UI tweaks to now add number of items selected, grid-lines for improved readability, reduced font sizes & margins, and improved window resizing.
  • Fixed UI focus issues.
  • Added default window width and height.
  • Added PowerRename event logging for BugReportTool

PowerToys Run

  • New entries added for settings plugin.
  • Added support for application URI handling likeย mailto:ย andย ms-settings:.
  • Added DevContainer workspaces to search results of the VSCode Workspaces Plugin.
  • Fixes for crashing issues.

Shortcut Guide

  • Added rounded corners to keys and tooltips, and system accent colors for desktop backdrop.

Settings

  • Fixed default settings window size to prevent it from opening offscreen.

Video Conference Mute

  • Minor UI tweaks for icon, clear button, and overlay image selection.

Prototype work

  • Always on top prototype of being actively worked on. Right now you hit a key-combo and it enables it. Microsoft are investigating ways to highlight the window in some form as well.

You can download the latest version from GitHub here.

via Neowin

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