In the v0.81 release cycle, we focused on stability, improvements and new features.

Installer Hashes

Highlights

• New utility: Advanced Paste, an AI powered tool to convert your clipboard content into another format. Thanks @craigloewen-msft for the core functionality and @niels9001 for the UI/UX design!
• Command Not Found now uses the PowerShell Gallery release and now supports ARM64. Thanks @carlos-zamora!
• Fixed most accessibility issues opened after the latest accessibility review.
• Refactored, packaged and released the main Environment Variables Editor, Hosts File Editor and Registry Preview utilities functionality as controls to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

General

• Fixed crashes on older CPUS by updating .NET to 8.0.4. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)

Advanced Paste

• New utility: Advanced Paste, an AI powered tool to convert your clipboard content into another format. Thanks @craigloewen-msft for the core functionality and @niels9001 for the UI/UX design!

AlwaysOnTop

• Enable border anti-aliasing. Thanks @ewancg!

Color Picker

• Improved accessibility by making the Settings and Copy to clipboard buttons focusable.
• Improved accessibility by supporting picking a color using the keyboard.

Command Not Found

• Upgraded the Command Not Found to use the new PowerShell Gallery release and support ARM64. Thanks @carlos-zamora!

Environment Variables Editor

• Refactored, packaged and released the main Environment Variables Editor functionality as a control to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

FancyZones

• Fixed window wrap around behavior when overriding Windows key and arrow shortcuts on single monitor scenarios. Thanks @DanRosenberry!
• Improved accessibility of the editor by listing the keyboard shortcuts in the Canvas Editor.

File Explorer add-ons

• Updated Monaco to 0.47 and added the new sticky scroll setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Added the new font size setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Added support for .srt (subtitle) file previewing in DevFiles viewer. Thanks @PesBandi!

Hosts File Editor

• Refactored, packaged and released the main Hosts File Editor functionality as a control to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

Image Resizer

• Supported narrator announcing the checkboxes in the UI and the sizes combobox. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Improved accessibility by increasing contrast in the text color of combobox items.

Installer

• Fixed some install failures when the folders the DSC module is to be installed in isn't accessible by the WiX installer. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)
• Detecting install location for DSC now uses registry instead of WMI to improve performance. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed an error causing the machine scope installer to not install correctly in machines where the documents folder is in a UNC network path. We're still working in a fix for the user scope installer.

Keyboard Manager

• Fixed startup crashes in the editor when the Visual C++ Redistributable wasn't installed. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the first button wasn't focused after adding a new row in the editor.
• Environment Variables are now expanded in arguments of programs started through a shortcut. Thanks @HydroH!

Paste as Plain Text

• Paste as Plain Text was removed as a separate utility, since its functionality is now part of the Advanced Paste utility.

Peek

• Updated icons, tweaked UI and refactored internal code. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
• Updated Monaco to 0.47 and added the new sticky scroll setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Added the new font size setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Upgrade the SharpCompress dependency to 0.37.2 and fixed archive parsing. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed aliasing in the image viewer.
• Added support for .srt (subtitle) file previewing in DevFiles viewer. Thanks @PesBandi!

Power Rename

• Fixed the descriptions that were mixed up in the regex helper (\S and \w).

PowerToys Run

• Added support for UNC paths starting with // in the Folder plugin. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed the plugin load failed message to list the failed plugins. Thanks @belkiss!
• Icons for MSIX packages are now updated when a package update is detected. Thanks @HydroH!
• Use Mica backdrop instead of Acrylic to fix random crashes caused by the Windows composition being momentarily turned off.
• Improved accessibility in the results list action buttons by improving contrast of hovered/focused buttons.

Quick Accent

• Added support for the Esperanto character set. Thanks @salutontalk and @ccmywish!
• Added the ǽ and ϑ characters. Thanks @PesBandi!

Registry Preview

• Refactored, packaged and released the main Registry Preview functionality as a control to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

Text Extractor

• Fixed an issue causing the Settings page to not be opened when clicking the Settings button in Text Extractor's overlay. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)

Settings

• Improved UI ordering of the File Explorer add-ons. Thanks @niels9001!
• Applied fixes to theme overriding and cleaned up unneeded code. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed misspells in references to the Hosts File Editor utility. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Improved accessibility of the Select Folder button in the Settings Backup UI.
• Improved accessibility by improving focus and tab navigation in the ColorPicker page. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Added a description to the fallback encoder setting in the Image Resizer page. Thanks @Kissaki!
• Refactored and improved performance in the PowerToys Run plugins UI in the Settings page. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed a crash when a user cleared the contents of a Number Box in the PowerToys Run plugins additional options. Thanks @htcfreek!
• Update the PATH environment variables with the user scope PATH when entering the Command Not Found page to improve PowerShell detection.

Documentation

• Added the WebSearchShortcut plugin to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @Daydreamer-riri!
• Updated COMMUNITY.md with the project managers that are part of the core team.
• Improved the DSC samples.
• Added the 1Password plugin to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @KairuDeibisu!
• Added the UnicodeInput plugin to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @nathancartlidge!

Development

• Updated System.Drawing.Common to 8.0.5 to fix CI builds after the .NET 8.0.5 upgrade was released.
• Fixed file permissions when doing a build using cache on PR CI. Thanks @dfederm!
• Removed the Test SDK reference on ARM64 to fix local building for ARM64. Thanks @dfederm!
• Replaced make_pair with RemapBufferRow in Keyboard Manager internal code. Thanks @masaru-iritani!
• Added CODEOWNERS file to protect sensitive parts of the repo. Thanks @htcfreek for the help in figuring out how to make the spellcheck folder an exception!
• Added comments in code. to make it clear what the error badge in PowerToys Run plugin list in Settings means. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
• Enabled caching by default in the PR CI pipelines. Thanks @dfederm!
• Disabled caching for PR started from forks, since those were failing. Thanks @dfederm!
• Removed baseline files for policy checking and turned on the "TSA" process in the release pipelines instead.
• Added caching of nuget packages in the PR CI pipelines. Thanks @dfederm!
• Updated the release CI pipelines TouchdownBuildTask to v3.
• Moved the release CI pipelines to ESRPv5.
• Added a policy for GitHub Copilot Workspaces for the repo on GitHub. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!