Microsoft released a new version of its PowerToys, which now includes interesting tools to manage deeper sections of your Windows PC.
The PowerToys 0.64 update has a new File Locksmith, which finds out that one process that’s holding up your files from being deleted and kills it. Also, there’s a new Hosts File editor to edit host files on the system and other tools. Microsoft has warned users of potential bugs, too, in this update.
PowerToys 0.64 Features and Fixes
If you’re a power user of Windows OS, you must know of this greatest offering called PowerToys from Microsoft, that’d make your experience better. Polishing this, even more, Microsoft added a bunch of new features in a new update to PowerToys.
As per its notes, the PowerToys 0.64 includes a new tool called the File Locksmith – which can delete the processes of certain files that are holding it up from being deleted. There are situations where we need this deeply, like when we don’t understand why a certain file is being barred from deletion.
The next one is a Hosts File Editor tool, where you can edit the Hosts file in your Windows OS with a proper editor UI. This eliminates the need for using a Notepad every time, as the Hosts file editor can let you block certain domains from being accessed, thus making the changes easier to it.
Aside from these, there’s a new tool for importing and exporting your current settings from a file – making your device migration easier across many devices. Here’s the list of more features and bug fixes in this update;
Always on Top
- Detect and put a window on top again if it’s no longer on top.
Color Picker
- Added the hexadecimal integer format.
FancyZones
- Added a way for users to configure default layouts for horizontal and vertical screens.
- Replaced remaining Number Boxes in FancyZones Editor with Sliders to improve accessibility for screen readers.
- Fixed an issue breaking window-switching shortcuts.
Group Policy Objects
- Group Policy Objects settings for force disabling and enabling PowerToys utilities.
Keyboard Manager
- Fixed a delay that was not being canceled properly.
Mouse Utilities
- Changed the opacity setting to the 1-100 range.
PowerToys Run
- Changed image loading to release the images in PowerToys Run main executable. This is a try to fix the “app.dark.png” missing issues received after a PowerToys update.
- Fixed the PowerToys Run hiding after the default action failed.
- Fixed the PowerToys Run allows showing after a context menu action succeeded.
Quick Accent
- Corrected “Dutch” word to “German”.
- Added the Portuguese language accents.
- Fixed positioning of the toolbar on scaled desktops.
Screen Ruler
- Improved the acrylic brush used in the menu.
Settings
- Added a feature to backup/restores settings to/from a file.
- Fixed an issue causing shortcuts shown in OOBE not to update to new values when the window was re-opened.
- Fixed the “Documents” folder usage in the backup/restore feature.
Text Extractor
- Added a warning about how to install languages for OCR recognition.
- Fixed the overlay not focusing after the first activation.
- Added spaces between CJK and non-CKJ words.
Video Conference Mute
- Added a setting to hide the Video Conference Mute overlay when muted.
- Added a warning about deprecating Video Conference Mute in the future (v0.67); please check #21473 for more information.
Installer
- Added some missing files that were causing Settings and PowerRename to not function correctly on some configurations.
- Updated the .NET dependency to 6.0.10.
Development
- Consolidated nuget packages and removed a few unused packages.
- Updated the Windows.CppRT to the latest version.
- Removed the cxxopts dependency, which was no longer used.
- Updated the cziplob dependency to 0.25.
- Updated the System.IO.Abstractions dependency.
- Turned on C++ code analysis and incrementally fixed warnings.
- Added the install method to the issue template on GitHub since some issues seem to be related to specific installation methods.
- Automated installer hash creation in the release CI.
- Simplified use of
.First()on ImageResizer. - Improved and clarified the issues templates.
- Fixed a PTRun unit test to be more compatible with .NET 6.
Well, there are a couple of bugs in the current update, too – like the
Text Extractor fails to function accordingly sometimes on Arm64-based devices or to some users in very specific instances. Also, the context menu entries for PowerRename and Image Resizer may not show up until you restart the PC, says Microsoft.
If these don’t concern you, you can proceed to download and try the PowerToys version 0.64 from GitHub. And if you’re already a user, you can check the in-app settings to get the new update.
