Microsoft Drops Two New PowerToys Preview Updates With Major Fixes

Microsoft has released two new PowerToys previews, bringing fixes and reliability improvements across Settings, Quick Accent, Workspaces, File Locksmith, Mouse Highlighter, New+, and other utilities.

The new PowerToys Preview 0.101.2222.0 and PowerToys Preview 0.101.2241.0 also expand Microsoft’s automated testing for several PowerToys modules.

PowerToys Settings and Quick Accent get fixes

PowerToys Preview 0.101.2222.0 restores the General page in Settings after a WinUI style incompatibility prevented it from loading correctly.

Microsoft also fixed Quick Accent so it no longer shows stale or blank initial frames. The accent bar now remains hidden until its composition update is ready.

PowerToys modules can also determine the active installation folder more reliably. They now check the running executable first, while registry lookup remains available for external packaged callers.

The change should improve module launching through Settings and Workspaces.

Microsoft expands PowerToys UI testing

Microsoft has also increased automated testing across several PowerToys utilities.

The new test coverage includes Image Resizer, Peek, File Explorer add-ons, and File Locksmith. Microsoft has added shared automation helpers as well.

The continuous integration workflow can now test Windows 11 context-menu behavior, giving Microsoft broader coverage for changes that affect Explorer integration.

File Locksmith and Mouse Highlighter get reliability improvements

The newer PowerToys Preview 0.101.2241.0 restores localized File Locksmith commands in the Windows 11 context menu.

Microsoft also changed how Mouse Highlighter handles rendering and animations. Ripple rendering and animation work now run separately from the low-level mouse hook.

This should make Mouse Highlighter more reliable when users generate rapid mouse input.

Quick Accent gets another fix in this preview. When users scroll through long accent lists, the final character now keeps its selection highlight correctly.

New+ improves template handling and desktop placement

Microsoft has also fixed issues affecting renamed templates in New+.

Newly created desktop items should now appear closer to the location where users opened the context menu.

PowerToys uses DPI-aware coordinates for this behavior, which should improve placement when users work with displays that use different scaling settings.

Microsoft pins PowerToys to .NET SDK 10.0.302

Microsoft has pinned the PowerToys continuous integration environment to .NET SDK 10.0.302 and centralized the corresponding runtime package version.

The change should prevent dependency-audit failures when newer SDK releases appear in the floating release channel.

These builds remain preview releases aimed at users who want to test upcoming PowerToys changes early. Users who prefer the stable branch can install PowerToys v0.101.2211.0.

Microsoft may also bring a new flyout menu to the PowerToys Awake utility in a future release.