Microsoft PowerToys v0.74.0 is out, to have several quality of life improvements

The latest release of PowerToys, version v0.74.0, is here, packing in numerous stability enhancements and improvements. Here are the previous versions, 0.73 and 0.72.

What is PowerToys?

Microsoft PowerToys is a collection of system utilities designed specifically for power users on the Windows operating system. These tools are geared towards enhancing productivity and providing more customization options for users.

PowerToys has been upgraded to the latest version of Windows App SDK, version 1.4.1, which has improved the stability of WinUI3 utilities. Text Extractor has also been updated to version 2.0, bringing a new overlay, table mode, and several Quality of Life improvements. FancyZones has received enhancements that eliminate layout reset bugs and improve window handling on Windows 11.

If you turn off animations in Windows Settings, they will also be disabled in PowerToys. We have also upgraded our dependency on Windows App SDK to version 1.4.1. Furthermore, labels and application titles will appear when running as an administrator.

Other highlights are:

1. Awake:
   1. Added down-sampled variants to the application’s icon.
2. Color Picker:
   1. After adding a new color in the editor, the history will scroll the new color into view.
3. Crop and Lock:
   1. Fixed a crash when reparenting a window, showing an error message instead.
4. File Explorer add-ons:
   1. Optimized CPU usage for generating SVG thumbnails.
   2. Improved Gcode Thumbnails handling.
   3. Fixed some thumbnail display issues.

A few general improvements are:

1. File Locksmith:
   1. Now, it shows files opened by processes with PID greater than 65535.
   2. Fixed a GDI object leak in the context menu.
2. Find My Mouse:
   1. Added new activation methods, including by hotkey.
3. Hosts File Editor:
   1. Improved handling of default ACME sample entries in the host file.
   2. Added better error handling.
4. Keyboard Manager:
   1. Distinguish between the regular minus key and the numpad minus key.
5. Mouse Without Borders:
   1. Fixed a crash when trying to restart the application.
6. Peek:
   1. Using Peek on HTML files will now show a white background by default, similar to a browser’s behavior.
      

Do you use PowerToys? What’s your favorite feature? Let us know in the comments below.