PowerToys 0.55 brings three new tools and various fixes

Microsoft released another PowerToys update with three new tools and many improvements. Version 0.55 also contains various under-the-hood optimizations in preparations to make PowerToys ARM64-ready. Here is what is new in PowerToys 0.55.

What's new in PowerToys 0.55

New File Explorer Add-ons

PowerToys 0.55 brings two new File Explorer add-ons. The first is developer files for the preview pane, which adds about 150 file extensions for previewing dev-related files in File Explorer.

The second add-on is an STL format thumbnail generator. STL is a popular 3D file format.

New Mouse Utilities

In addition to the cursor finder and cursor highlighter, Mouse Utilities in PowerToys received another tool: Mouse Pointer Chrosshairs. You can press Ctrl + Alt + P (the shortcut is customizable, which means you can change it to any other key sequence) to display a crosshair around the cursor. This feature will make using a computer more accessible for visually impaired people.

Mouse Pointer Chrosshairs is fully customizable—you can change lines thickness, color, opacity, center radius, border color, size, etc.

Fixes and Improvements

• NET runtime is now on 5, our next release will be upgraded to .NET 6.
• Always on top: Fixed one of two borders showing incorrectly bugs.
• Always on top: Border defaults to OS accent color now.
• Always on top: Reduced CPU / GPU activity. Not done improving, we know we can do better.
• FancyZones: Bug fixed to not lose zones after update.
• FancyZones: Fixed editor margin issue for Chinese language.
• File Explorer add-ons: GCode thumbnails now have transparency.
• Image Resizer: Fixed bug with too much meta data.
• Image Resizer: Fixed bug resizing bug for constant height while maintaining aspect ratio.
• PowerRename: Files are sorted now how File Explorer sorts.
• PowerToys Run: Improved speed and fixed bugs with Window walker plugin.
• PowerToys Run: Window Walker will now show path of elevated apps.
• PowerToys Run: Added UEFI command to system commands.
• PowerToys Run: Fixed crashing bug in EnvironmentHelper class.
• PowerToys Run: Fix URI plugin bug with ^:
• PowerToys Run: VS Code plugin not showing workspaces with latest Code version was corrected.
• PowerToys Run: Fixed bug that caused plugins to not load.
• PowerToys Run: Fixed crash in Uri plugin and Web search plugin.
• Settings: Fixed a regression with settings being reset when moving from admin to non-admin.
• Video Conference Mute: Fixed crashing bug with Zoom and other clients. We found someone we could remotely debug with and identify the actual crashing part.
• Video Conference Mute Change of behavior: When leaving a meeting, VCM will now leave your microphone in the state it was. This mimics behavior of applications if VCM was not present.
• Video Conference Mute Change of behavior: When you exit PowerToys, your current microphone state will remain.

You can download PowerToys 0.55 from its GitHub repository, the Microsoft Store, or using winget.

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