PowerToys Release Preview v0.102.2803.0

This is the first prerelease for the PowerToys 0.102 release train built from the stable branch. It remains a preview-channel build, not the final 0.102 stable release.

The changes below are relative to v0.101.2781.0, the previous published preview built from main. Features already available in that preview are retained unless noted under Differences from the previous preview.

Installer Hashes

Highlights

• Command Palette: Added visual previews when choosing full or compact layouts.
• Command Palette: Made dock pins and other settings more reliable across restarts.
• Command Palette: Fixed missing or generic Shell icons and stale icon-cache entries.
• Command Palette: Improved packaged-app icons for language, size, and contrast variants.
• Command Palette: Preserved shortcut icon artwork, padding, and configured fallbacks.
• Command Palette: Kept Settings search highlights animated independently of page-transition animations.
• General: Reduced duplicated native runtime code by using the Windows-provided Universal CRT where supported.
• PowerRename: Removed unused Boost.Regex binaries without changing regular-expression features.

Command Palette

• Added visual previews for choosing full or compact layouts and separated related options into settings cards, making layout customization easier to discover in #51007 by @jiripolasek
• Fixed missing or generic Shell icons during concurrent loading and refreshed cached icons after Windows appearance-metric changes in #51031 by @jiripolasek
• Prevented overlapping settings saves from losing newer changes, so dock pins and other preferences are retained more reliably after restarting in #51036 by @jiripolasek
• Improved packaged-app and shortcut icons by preserving language and contrast variants, native artwork and padding, and configured icon fallbacks in lists and details in #51039 by @jiripolasek
• Kept Settings search-result highlighting animated when page-transition animations are disabled, so navigation targets remain easy to spot in #51070 by @jiripolasek

General

• Reduced duplicated native runtime code by using Windows' built-in Universal CRT where supported, while retaining static VC++ runtime linkage and preserving New+ template behavior in #50899 by @Copilot

PowerRename

• Removed unused prebuilt Boost.Regex libraries from the installation package without changing the Use Boost library option or regular-expression behavior in #51002 by @Copilot

Development

• Replaced Command Palette's native Windows Run-history dependency with a managed implementation, simplifying packaging while retaining recent-command history in #50974 by @jiripolasek
• Preserved the originating page and provider context when dispatching Command Palette commands, preparing command routing for future dock flyouts without adding a new flyout in this release in #51034
• Stabilized Run page environment-variable tests by moving Shell parsing out of the page timeout while preserving directory-enumeration coverage in #51043 by @jiripolasek
• Stabilized Command Palette cache-rebuild tests by avoiding unrelated initialization notifications and checking retry behavior and cache reuse in #51049
• Corrected WinRT source generation for the shared hotkey settings hook and made new CsWinRT1028 diagnostics fail the build in #51066 by @Copilot

Extension compatibility

In the updated Command Palette Toolkit, GetThumbnail(missingPath, jumbo: true) returns null instead of a generic unknown-file icon, matching the small-icon behavior. Extensions using the updated Toolkit should provide a fallback when needed.

Differences from the previous preview

• PowerDisplay: The Copy monitor diagnostics action introduced in #48209 is not included in this stable-based preview. The stable branch retains its earlier removal; this is a difference from the previous main-based preview, not a newly added feature.

Changes needing final review

• Advanced the checked-in release train from 0.101 to 0.102 while retaining the existing version epoch. This was committed directly to the stable branch rather than through a separate PR: 5de238aab86e.