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

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

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

One other noteworthy feature in version 0.64.0 is the power to back up and restore settings. You may now store your PowerToys settings, custom key bindings, and other parameters in a file. It’s a fast and straightforward method to get your preferences to a different device or store them safely. Finally, PowerToys gets Group Policy Objects settings for enabling or disabling utilities on managed devices.

Here is the complete changelog for PowerToys 0.64.0:

Highlights:

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

  

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

  

• FancyZones lets you set defaults for horizontal/vertical screens to recover intended behavior for brand spanking 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 longer term (v0.67), please check #21473 for more information.

Known Issues:

• The Text Extractor utility fails to acknowledge text in some cases on ARM64 devices running Windows 10.
• After installing PowerToys, the brand new Windows 11 context menu entries for PowerRename and Image Resizer may not appear before a system restart.
• There are reports of users who’re unable to open the Settings window. That is being attributable to incompatibilities with some applications (RTSS RivaTuner Statistics Server is a known examples of this). If you happen to’re affected by this, please check the linked issue to confirm if any of the presented solutions works for you.

All the time on Top

• Detect and put a window on top again if it’s not 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 enhance accessibility for screen readers.Fixed a problem breaking window switching shortcuts.

File Locksmith

• Added a recent utility: File Locksmith.

Group Policy Objects

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

Hosts File Editor

• Added a recent utility: Hosts File Editor.

Keyboard Manager

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

Mouse Utilities

• Modified the opacity setting to the 1-100 range.

PowerToys Run

• Modified image loading to release the photographs in PowerToys Run predominant executable. This can be a attempt to fix the “app.dark.png” missing issues received after a PowerToys update.
• Fixed the PowerToys Run hiding after the default motion failed.
• Fixed the PowerToys Run allows showing after a context menu motion 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 utilized in the menu. Thanks @niels9001!

Settings

• Added a feature to backup/restore settings to/from a file.
• Fixed a problem causing shortcuts shown in OOBE not updating to recent values when the window was re-opened.
• Fixed the “Documents” folder usage within the backup/restore feature.

Text Extractor

• Added a warning about the way to install languages for OCR recognition.
• Fixed the overlay not focusing after the primary activation.
• Added spaces between CJK and non-CKJ words.

Video Conference Mute

• Added a setting to cover the Video Conference Mute overlay when muted.
• Added a warning about deprecating Video Conference Mute in the longer term (v0.67), please check #21473 for more information.

Installer

• Added some missing files that were causing Settings and PowerRename to not function accurately on some configurations.
• Updated the .NET dependency to six.0.10.

Development

• Consolidated nuget packages and removed a number of unused packages.
• Updated the Windows.CppRT to the most recent version.
• Removed the cxxopts dependency, which was not used.
• Updated the cziplob dependency to 0.25.
• Updated the System.IO.Abstractions dependency.
• Turned on C++ code evaluation and incrementally fixing warnings.
• Added the install method to the difficulty template on GitHub, since some issues appear to be related to specific installation methods.
• Automated installer hash creation in the discharge CI.
• Simplified use of .First() on ImageResizer.
• Improved and clarified the problems templates.
• Fixed a PTRun unit test to be more compatible with .NET 6.

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