Microsoft’s free system utility suite called PowerToys was resurrected from the Windows XP era and introduced to Windows 10 in May 2019. Can be used for advanced users to adjust and simplify Windows operations to improve efficiency. DNS understands that by working with Windows 10/ Windows 11  shell, users can customize various workflows at the same time.

Foreign media Neowin reported that last month, Microsoft released the PowerToys 0.43.0 version, which has a large number of bug fixes, including for the eye-catching high CPU usage. Today, Microsoft launched PowerToys 0.45.0 version, focusing on optimizing existing functions, improving stability, and improving accessibility. In addition, it also contains an update of the installer and a new setting menu UI, which provides a brand new experience by using new styling elements. The style design is done through Fluent UX, making it more consistent with the UI of Windows 11.

The following is the update:

Change content

• Removed ModuleImageLink.
• Replaced theme radiobuttons settings with combobox.
• Combine the C# components in the project into a test framework.
• StyleCop and warning fixes.
• Removed unused namespace aliases.
• Standardize .NET JSON to System.Text.Json.
• Fixed various broken links and icons in .xaml.
• Updated the name properties of the “Edit Layout” and “Create Custom Layout” controls to exclude private Unicode characters.
• Change the bitmask variable from size_t to uint64_t, which will enable PowerToys to support more than 40 regions per layout.
• Adjusted the telemetry data to better distinguish the startup situation of PowerToys Run at startup.
• The plug-in “direct activation phrase” setting was renamed to “direct activation string”.
• The environment variables are updated when they are changed.

General improvements

• The settings and OOBE windows are updated for a smoothly designed user experience! We hope you like the new modern vision of the application menu because our product is consistent with the upcoming Windows 11 interface.
• A button to display the version history has been added to the settings.
• Signed PowerToysSetupCustomActions.dll.
• Improved the visual of update availability and update ready information.
• Improved the experience of automatic updates.
• Align the OOBE theme color with the set theme color.
• Adjust the label of the “Restart as administrator” button to “Restart PowerToys as an administrator” to avoid ambiguity in meaning.
• Added colored icons in the settings sidebar.
• Fixed the accessibility problem that the Microsoft Docs and PowerToys release notes link in OOBE could not be navigated through the keyboard.
• Corrected the alignment of the title.
• Fixed that in light mode, the next update text is visible.
• Updated the “Learn More” text to make it more descriptive.
• Updated the “read more” text on the update to make it more descriptive.
• Added a document link in the system tray.
• Fixed errors caused by file usage problems when installing PowerToys.
• Fixed the problem of opening the settings from the “Start” menu when PowerToys is running as an administrator.

Awake

• Awake option has been added to the translation error template.
• Adjusted the description of inactive settings to improve the distinction between disabled and inactive utilities.

Color picker

• Fixed the problem that the HEX value of the color is not updated when the RGB value is changed.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where screen readers did not notify when “Copy to Clipboard” was activated.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where users could not hover over the content of the information icon with the mouse.
• Fixed an issue where the format order of the color picker could not be accessed via the keyboard.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the screen reader notifies that the name of the “Edit Color Format” button is incorrect, and does not notify the “Toggle Switch” button at all.

FancyZones

• Adjusted the “Save and Apply” editor buttons to adapt to the localized text size.
• Fixed the visibility of the “Create New Layout” button in high-contrast mode.
• Fixed a strange zoom issue related to the editor user interface.
• Fixed an issue where the editor crashed when the “Edit Layout” button was double-clicked.
• Fixed the problem that the editor crashed immediately after displaying the area.
• Fixed an issue where when navigating editor options through the keyboard, pressing the Enter key on the unselected Canvas option would launch the Grid editor.
• Fixed an issue where FancyZones could not restore the console application.
• Corrected the window height of the Canvas editor and the grid editor.
• Fixed the crash problem caused by KERNELBASE.dll.
• Fixed an issue where the FancyZone icon was smoother at higher DPI settings.
• Fixed a crash when switching between regional layouts.
• Fixed the problem that FancyZones could not adjust the window size when changing the layout.
• Adjusted the layout settings to reset the shortcut keys after canceling changes to a particular layout.

File Explorer add-on

• Fixed an issue where marked files would still be previewed even if “Enable Marking” was not selected.

Picture adjuster

Added warning: If the encoding used in the file is not compatible, GIF files with an animation may not be resized correctly.

Keyboard manager

• Improved the user interface of the KBM remap list.

PowerRename

• The plug-in options in the expanded settings can now be switched.
• Fixed the race conditions that caused PowerRename to crash the file manager.

PowerToys Run

• Fixed the lag problem caused by PowerToys running in the background and calling Alt-Tab.
• Solved the exception of not finding the file when loading “System.Windows.Controls.Ribbon”.
• Fixed the crash of null reference exception.
• Fixed the problem that the registry plug-in loading crash.
• Fixed an unauthorized access exception when setting registry keys for utilities.
• Improved the visibility of warnings when plug-in properties are collapsed.
• Added search for plugin manager.
• Fixed the problem that the VSCode workspace plugin does not work.

Mute the video conference

• Corrected the vertical offset of the upper right corner of the toolbar, allowing users to close other application windows.
• Fixes the compatibility problem of some systems when compiling from source code.
• Fixed the problem that the toolbox persisted on the screen.
• Fixed the microphone unmute problem when changing the position of the video conference mute toolbar.
• Added video conference mute in OOBE.

In the future, the experimental version of Microsoft PowerToys 0.46 will be released in the second week of this month and will bring updated video conferencing mute tools.

If you are using PowerToys, you can open the application and click “Check for updates” in the update section on the “General” tab. Those who want to try PowerToys for the first time can download the PowerToys 0.45 installer from the application GitHub page .

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