PowerToys 0.64.0 is out with File Locksmith, Hosts File Editor, and settings backup

Microsoft has released a new feature update for PowerToys. Version 0.64.0 is now available for download with two brand-new utilities, settings backup, and a massive list of fixes.

PowerToys 0.64.0 introduces a new File Locksmith utility (shown below). It lets you see what process or processes use the selected file or folder, preventing them from deletion or modification. The second new tool provides an easy and convenient UI for editing the Hosts file—no more diving into the system drive and opening Hosts in Notepad.

You can view details about processes and even end them if necessary.

Another noteworthy feature in version 0.64.0 is the ability to back up and restore settings. You can now store your PowerToys settings, custom key bindings, and other parameters in a file. It is a quick and easy way to get your preferences to another device or store them safely. Finally, PowerToys gets Group Policy Objects settings for enabling or disabling utilities on managed devices.

Here is the full changelog for PowerToys 0.64.0:

Highlights:

• New utility: File Locksmith allows seeing which processes are currently using the selected files.
• New utility: Hosts File Editor allows you to edit your hosts file in an Editor UI.

  

   

• Settings has a new feature for backing up / restoring the settings from a file.

  

   

• FancyZones allows you to set defaults for horizontal/vertical screens to get better intended behavior for new screens and cases where a monitor ID resets.
• PowerToys ships with Group Policy Objects settings for force disabling and enabling PowerToys utilities in organizations. Check the GPO docs for more details.
• Added a warning about deprecating Video Conference Mute in the future (v0.67), please check #21473 for more information.

Known Issues:

• The Text Extractor utility fails to recognize text in some cases on ARM64 devices running Windows 10.
• 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 is a 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.

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 remaning Number Boxes in FancyZones Editor with Sliders, to improve accessibility for screen readers.Fixed an issue breaking window switching shortcuts.

File Locksmith

• Added a new utility: File Locksmith.

Group Policy Objects

• Group Policy Objects settings for force disabling and enabling PowerToys utilities.

Hosts File Editor

• Added a new utility: Hosts File Editor.

Keyboard Manager

• Fixed a delay that was not being cancelled properly. Thanks @AtariDreams!

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 toolbar on scaled desktops.

Screen Ruler

• Improved the acrylic brush used in the menu. Thanks @niels9001!

Settings

• Added a feature to backup/restore settings to/from a file.
• Fixed an issue causing shortcuts shown in OOBE not updating 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 fixing 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.

You can download PowerToys 0.64.0 from the Microsoft Store or GitHub.

PowerToys 0.64.0 is out with File Locksmith, Hosts File Editor, and settings backup