Microsoft PowerToys 0.61.0 brings improvements to Always on Top, FancyZones and more

Microsoft has released PowerToys 0.61.0 for all users today. The project remains in public preview, but the latest version adds several notable changes and improvements. Microsoft says release 0.61 focuses on stability and improvements.

Here are the release highlights in PowerToys 0.61.0:

• Quality of life improvements for Always on Top, FancyZones and PowerToys Run.

And here is the full changelog for version 0.61.0:

General

• Upgraded the Windows App SDK runtimes to 1.1.2.
• The new Windows 11 context menu entries are now correctly added to Windows 11 dev channel insider builds. (This was a hotfix for 0.60)
• The old context menu entries are shown alongside the new Windows 11 context menu entries to be compatible with software that overrides the Windows 11 context menu behavior. (This was a hotfix for 0.60)
• Consolidated C# language version across the solution. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Removed deprecated Segoe icon glyph codes and replaced them with the correct ones. Thanks @niels9001 and @Jay-o-Way!
• Fixed an issue that caused a random accent key to be pressed on certain keyboard layouts when enabling some modules.

Always on Top

• Fixed border flickering when activating. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed a bug causing Always on Top to activate and hang when exiting PowerToys. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed black edges appearing on rounded corners.
• Fixed a bug that was causing 100% CPU consumption.

FancyZones

• Fixed a bug that caused layouts to not be applied correctly when many monitors reported having the same serial number. (This was a hotfix for 0.60)
• Fixed a bug that caused layouts to not be applied correctly on some virtual monitor setups (This was a hotfix for 0.60)
• A "Rows" default layout is now applied to vertical monitors, instead of a "Columns" layout. Thanks @augustkarlstedt!

Image Resizer

• Screen reader now announces the size name instead of the class name.

File explorer add-ons

• Fixed an issue when creating thumbnails for SVG files created using Inkscape.

Keyboard Manager

• Adjusted wording on the editor when keys are orphaned.

Mouse utility

• Fixed a bug that caused the current Find My Mouse spotlight to hang when activated in the top left corner of the screen. (This was a hotfix for 0.60)

PowerRename

• The PowerRename window reacts to current dpi when created.

PowerToys Run

• Fixed a typo in the WindowWalker plugin UI. Thanks @rohanrdy!
• Improved performance by saving the search history files only on exit. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• PowerToys Run no longer shows results for some plugins when querying for empty spaces in a global query. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Added support for showing localized names for some win32 programs in the programs plugin. Thanks @htcfreek!
• The program plugin will now consider settings changed directly in ProgramPluginSettings.json. Thanks @bezgumption!

Settings

• PowerToys Run settings page properly greys out the score adjustment setting when a plugin is not global. Thanks @jefflord!
• PowerToys Run plugins score adjustment field accepts only numeric characters. Thanks @jefflord!
• Will not run if started directly from its executable, as it was before the WinUI 3 upgrade.
• Fixed a typo in a PowerToys Run settings page description. Thanks @eltociear!

Installer

• Removed the dead code to make a msix installer.
• Updated the .NET dependency to 6.0.7.
• Won't create a new PowerToys shortcut on update if it's been removed manually by the user.

PowerToys 0.61 comes with a couple of known issues:

• After installing PowerToys, the new Windows 11 context menu entries for PowerRename and Image Resizer might not appear before a system restart.
• There are reports of users who are unable to open the Settings window. This is being caused by incompatibilities with some applications (RTSS RivaTuner Statistics Server and MSI AfterBurner are known examples of this). If you're affected by this, please check the linked issue to verify if any of the presented solutions works for you.

You can download PowerToys 0.61.0 from the Microsoft Store using this link or the official repository on GitHub. If you already have PowerToys installed on your computer, the app will notify you about available updates, or you can manually update from settings.

If you are unfamiliar with PowerToys, it is a set of advanced utilities provided by Microsoft and the open-source developer community. It contains various tools, such as an app launcher, bulk file renamer, color picker, a utility to customize shortcuts, etc. Microsoft frequently updates PowerToys with new features and fixes.

Microsoft PowerToys 0.61.0 brings improvements to Always on Top, FancyZones and more