One of the best PowerToys features just got even better — and it puts Windows Search to shame

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Microsoft’s top-tier Windows application, PowerToys, recently received an update. This no-cost software offers a variety of tools tailored for advanced users, yet boasts several features that even everyday computer users might find beneficial.

In its most recent update, PowerToys has been bumped up to version 0.92. This update enhances the speed of the Command Palette, introduces fresh customization possibilities for the Color Picker, and boosts the quality of File Explorer extensions’ display.

The GitHub page for PowerToys lists the highlights of the latest update:

  • PowerToys settings now has a toggle for the system tray icon, giving users control over its visibility based on personal preference. Thanks @BLM16!
  • Command Palette now has Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compatibility for all first-party extensions, improved extensibility, and core UX fixes, resulting in better performance and stability across commands.
  • Color Picker now has customizable mouse button actions, enabling more personalized workflows by assigning functions to left, right, and middle clicks. Thanks @PesBandi!
  • Bug Report Tool now has a faster and clearer reporting process, with progress indicators, improved compression, auto-cleanup of old trace logs, and inclusion of MSIX installer logs for more efficient diagnostics.
  • File Explorer add-ons now have improved rendering stability, resolving issues with PDF previews, blank thumbnails, and text file crashes during file browsing.

The PowerToys application, which is widely utilized among our Windows Central team members, offers a variety of useful tools. These tools can be enabled or disabled as desired via the app’s interface.

As a less tech-savvy PC user, I frequently rely on the tools like Image Resizer and PowerRename from PowerToys for my everyday tasks.

Among the numerous benefits of using PowerToys, you have the flexibility to utilize just one tool within the application or maximize its potential by combining multiple tools. Mauro Huculak has put together a guide on three hidden features of PowerToys that might not be commonly known, and I strongly suggest this article as a helpful introduction for newcomers to PowerToys.

As a tech enthusiast, I’m thrilled about the enhancements in PowerToys version 0.92, particularly with its Command Palette! This tool is an advanced iteration of PowerToys Run. The Command Palette lets me search through my installed apps, commands, and files, making navigation a breeze. Plus, it even allows for WinGet package installation – talk about convenience!

After the recent update, you can expect the Command Palette within PowerToys to function smoother and exhibit greater stability. The PowerToys development team has released a detailed changelog for PowerToys version 0.92.

PowerToys 0.92: New features

Command Palette

  • Enhanced performance by resolving a regression in page loading.
  • Applied consistent hotkey handling across all Command Palette commands for a smoother user experience.
  • Improved graceful closing of Command Palette. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Fixed consistency issue for extensions’ alias with “Direct” setting and enabled localization for “Direct” and “Indirect” for better user understanding. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Improved visual clarity by styling critical context items correctly.
  • Automatically focused the field when only one is present on the content page.
  • Improved stability and efficiency when loading file icons in SDK ThumbnailHelper.cs by removing unnecessary operations. Thanks @OldUser101!
  • Enhanced details view with commands implementation. (See Extension sample)

Command Palette extensions

  • Added “Copy Path” command to App search results for convenience. Thanks @PesBandi!
  • Improved Calculator input experience by ignoring leading equal signs. Thanks @PesBandi!
  • Corrected input handling in the Calculator extension to avoid showing errors for input with only leading whitespace.
  • Improved New Extension wizard by validating names to prevent namespace errors.
  • Ensured consistent context items display for the Run extension between fallback and top-level results.
  • Fixed missing Time & Date commands in fallback results. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Fixed outdated results in the Time & Date extension. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Fixed an issue where Web Search always opened Microsoft Edge instead of the user’s default browser on Windows 11 24H2 and later. Thanks @RuggMatt!
  • Improved ordering of Windows Settings extension search results from alphabetical to relevance-based for quicker access.
  • Added “Restart Windows Explorer” command to the Windows System Commands provider for gracefully terminate and relaunch explorer.exe. Thanks @jiripolasek!

File Explorer add-ons

  • Fixed potential failures in PDF previewer and thumbnail generation, improving reliability when browsing PDF files. Thanks @mohiuddin-khan-shiam!
  • Prevented Monaco Preview Handler crash when opening UTF-8-BOM text files.

Mouse Without Borders

  • Fixed firewall rule so MWB now accepts connections from IPs outside your local subnet.
  • Cleaned legacy logs to reduce disk usage and noise.

Peek

  • Added codec detection with a clear warning when a video can’t be previewed, along with a link to the Microsoft Store to download the required codec.

PowerRename

  • Added support for $YY-$MM-$DD in ModificationTime and AccessTime to enable flexible date-based renaming.

PowerToys Run

  • Suppressed error UI for known WPF-related crashes to reduce user confusion, while retaining diagnostic logging for analysis. This targets COMException 0xD0000701 and 0x80263001 caused by temporary DWM unavailability.

Settings

  • Added an option to hide or show the PowerToys system tray icon. Thanks @BLM16!
  • Improved settings to show progress while a bug report package is being generated.

Workspaces

  • Stored Workspaces icons in user AppData to ensure profile portability and prevent loss during temporary folder cleanup.
  • Enabled capture and launch of PWAs on non-default Edge or Chrome profiles, ensuring consistent behavior during creation and execution.

Development

  • Introduced a one-step local build script that generates a signed installer, enhancing developer productivity.
  • Generated portable PDBs so cross-platform debuggers can read symbol files, improving debugging experience in VSCode and other tools.
  • Simplified WinGet configuration files by using the Microsoft.Windows.Settings module to enable Developer Mode. Thanks @mdanish-kh!
  • Adjusted build scripts for the latest Az.Accounts module to keep CI green.
  • Streamlined release pipeline by removing hard-coded telemetry version numbers, and unified Command Palette versioning with Windows Terminal’s versioning method for consistent updates.
  • Enhanced the build validation step to show detailed differences between NOTICE.md and actual package dependencies and versions.
  • Improved spell-checking accuracy across the repo. Thanks @rovercoder!
  • Upgraded CI to TouchdownBuild v5 for faster pipelines.
  • Added context comments to Resources.resw to help translators.
  • Expanded fuzz testing coverage to include FancyZones.
  • Integrated all unit tests into the CI pipeline, increasing from ~3,000 to ~5,000 tests.
  • Enabled daily UI test automation on the main branch, now covering over 370 UI tests for end-to-end validation.
  • Newly added unit tests for WorkspacesLib to improve reliability and maintainability.

General

  • Included App Installer (“AppX Deployment Server”) event logs in bug reports for more thorough diagnostics.

How to download PowerToys

The PowerToys application, which is available for free, can be obtained from the Microsoft Store or directly from its release page on GitHub.

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2025-07-02 16:39