PowerToys 0.76 is out with New File Explorer Add-ons, and modernizations

PowerToys 0.76 is now available for download with new Add-ons for File Explorer, and modernizations for PowerToys Run, Quick Accent and Text Extractor UI that bring Windows 11-like visuals, as is to be expected, this release also brings a massive list of fixes and improvements.

Without further ado:

What is new in PowerToys 0.76?

Update highlights:

• Upgrade to .NET 8. Thanks @snickler!
• Keyboard Manager can now remap keys and shortcuts to send sequences of unicode text.
• Modernized the Keyboard Manager Editor UI. Thanks @dillydylann!
• Modernized the PowerToys Run, Quick Accent and Text Extractor UIs. Thanks @niels9001!
• New File Explorer Add-ons: QOI image Preview Handler and Thumbnail Provider. Thanks @pedrolamas!

Full release notes:

General

• Updated the WebView 2 dependency to 1.0.2088.41. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed unreadable colour brushes used across WinUI3 applications for improved accessibility. Thanks @niels9001!
• Flyouts used across WinUI3 applications are no longer constrained to the application's bounds. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
• Upgraded the WPF-UI dependency to preview.9 and then preview.11. Thanks @niels9001 and @pomianowski!
• Upgraded to .NET 8. Thanks @snickler!
• Updated the WinAppSDK dependency to 1.4.3.

Awake

• Added localization to the tray icon context menu.

Crop And Lock

• Fixed restoring windows that were reparented while maximized.

Environment Variables

• Fixed crash caused by WinAppSDK version bump by replacing ListView elements with ItemsControl.

FancyZones

• Reverted a change that caused some applications, like the Windows Calculator, to not snap correctly. (This was a hotfix for 0.75)
• FancyZones Editor will no longer apply a layout to the current monitor after editing it.
• Fixed and refactored the code that detected if a window can be snapped. Added tests to it with known application window styles to avoid regressions in the future.

File Explorer add-ons

• Solved an issue incorrectly detecting encoding when previewing code files preview.
• Fixed the background colour for Gcode preview handler on dark theme. Thanks @pedrolamas!
• New utilities: Preview Handler and Thumbnail Provider for QOI image files. Thanks @pedrolamas!
• GCode Thumbnails are now in the 32 bit ARGB format. Thanks @pedrolamas!
• Added the perceived type to SVG and QOI file thumbnails. Thanks @pedrolamas!

GPO

• Added the missing Environment Variables utility policy to the .admx and .adml files. (This was a hotfix for 0.75)
• Fixed some typos and text improvements in the .adml file. Thanks @htcfreek!

Hosts File Editor

• Added a proper warning when the hosts file is read-only and a button to make it writable. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

Image Resizer

• Fixed a WPF-UI issue regarding the application's background brushes. Thanks @niels9001!

Installer

• Included the Text Extractor and Awake localization files in the install process.

Keyboard Manager

• Modernized the UI with the Fluent design. Thanks @dillydylann!
• Added the feature to remap keys and shortcuts to arbitrary unicode text sequences.

Mouse Without Borders

• Removed Thread.Suspend calls when exiting the utility. That call is deprecated, unneeded and was causing a silent crash.

Peek

• Added the possibility to pause/resume videos with the space bar. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed high CPU usage when idle before initializing the main window. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Implemented Ctrl+W as a shortcut to close Peek. Thanks @Physalis2!
• Solved an issue incorrectly detecting encoding when previewing code files.
• Fixed background issues when peeking into HTML files after the WebView 2 upgrade.

PowerToys Run

• Moved to WPF-UI and redesigned according to Fluent UX principles. Thanks @niels9001!
• Fixed an issue causing 3rd party plugins to not have their custom settings correctly initialized with default values. (This was a hotfix for 0.75) Thanks @waaverecords!
• Fixed a crash in the VSCode plugin when the VSCode path had trailing backspaces. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed a crash when trying to load invalid image icons.
• Fixed a crash in the Programs plugin when getting images for some .lnk files.
• Fixed a rare startup initialization error and removed cold start operations that were no longer needed. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Improved calculations for Windows File Time and Unix Epoch Time in the DateTime plugin. Thanks @htcfreek!
• Fixed a crash when trying to get the icon for a link that pointed to no file.
• Cleaned up code in the WindowWalker plugin improving the logic. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

Quick Accent

• Moved from ModernWPF to WPF-UI. Thanks @niels9001!
• Added support to the Finnish language character set. Thanks @davidtlascelles!
• Added currency symbols for Croatian, Gaeilge, Gàidhlig and Welsh. Thanks @PesBandi!
• Added a missing Latin letter ꝡ. Thanks @cubedhuang!
• Added fraction characters. Thanks @PesBandi!
• Added support to the Danish language character set. Thanks @PesBandi!
• Added the Kazakhstani Tenge character to the Currencies characters set. Thanks @PesBandi!
• Renamed Slovakian to Slovak, which is the correct term. Thanks @PesBandi!
• Added the Greek language character set. Thanks @mcbabo!

Settings

• When clicking a module's name on the Dashboard, it will navigate to that module's page.
• Fixed the clipping of information in the Backup and Restore section of the General Settings page. Thanks @niels9001!
• Updated the File Explorer Add-ons fluent icon. Thanks @niels9001!
• Added a warning when trying to set a shortcut that might conflict with "Alt Gr" key combinations.
• Added a direct link to the OOBE's "What's New page" from the main Settings window. Thanks @iakrayna!
• Changed mentions from Microsoft Docs to Microsoft Learn.
• Fixed the slow reaction to system theme changes.

Text Extractor

• Move to WPF-UI, localization and light theme support. Thanks @niels9001!
• Disabled by default on Windows 11, with a information box on Settings to prefer using the Windows Snipping Tool, which now supports OCR.

Documentation

• Fixed some typos in the README. Thanks @Asymtode712!
• Reworked the gpo docs on learn.microsoft.com, adding .admx, registry and Intune information. Thanks @htcfreek!

Development credits:

Development

• Updated the check-spelling ci action to 0.22. Thanks @jsoref!
• Refactored the modules data model used between the Settings Dashboard and Flyout.
• Fixed a flaky interop test that was causing automated CI to hang occasionally.
• Increased the WebView 2 loading timeout to reduce flakiness in those tests. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Added support for building with the Dev Drive CopyOnWrite feature, increasing build speed. Thanks @pedrolamas!
• Addressed the C# static analyzers suggestions. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Addressed the C++ static analyzers suggestions.
• PRs that only contain Markdown or text files changes no longer trigger the full CI. Thanks @snickler!
• Updated the Microsoft.Windows.CsWinRT to 2.0.4 to fix building with the official Visual Studio 17.8 release.
• Fixed new code quality issues caught by the official Visual Studio 17.8 release.
• Added a bot trigger to point contributors to the main new contribution issue on GitHub. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Removed unneeded entries from expect.txt.
• Turned off a new feature from Visual Studio that was adding the commit hash to the binary files Product Version.
• Refactored and reviewed the spellcheck entries into different files. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
• Added Spectre mitigation and SHA256 hash creation for some DLLs.
• Reverted the release pipeline template to a previous release that's stable for shipping PowerToys.

PowerToys is available on Windows 10 and 11. You can download the app from the Microsoft Store or GitHub.

Source