PowerToys is Microsoft's open source project that offers a collection of nifty tools that people can use to customize the Windows 10 UI and experience to their liking. As we know, depending upon feedback and general stability, some of the utilities also make their way to the OS. A prominent example of this is Snap Layouts and Snap Groups in Windows 11 which borrow heavily from the FanzyZones tool in PowerToys.
Earlier this month, Microsoft released PowerToys version 0.45.0 with a ton of bug fixes, a new settings menu with Fluent Design and more stability updates. Today, the company has rolled out version 0.46.0 which adds the Video Conference Mute utility. Microsoft does note in the changelog that they expect there may be issues with this Experimental release, so if you're not up for unexpected issues, stay on the stable 0.45.0 release.
The change log for PowerToys 0.46.0 Experimental, can be seen below:
Change log
- Fixed toolbar top right vertical offset to allow users to close other app windows.
- Fixed compatibility issues for certain systems when compiling from source.
- Fixed toolbox from persisting on screen.
- Fixed microphone un-muting when changing Video Conference Mute toolbar position.
- Added Video Conference Mute to the "Welcome to PowerToys" window.
To find out more about the Video conference mute utility, head over to the Video Conference Mute overview. There's also a bunch of known issues, which can be viewed below:
Current known issues and limitations:
- With some webcams, there is an incompatibility with Teams and the overlay image is not rendered, instead a corrupted frame is shown. If your camera has this quirk, please report the model in the [main tracking issue - #6246]
- The application preview (Teams, Meet, etc.) may show the overlay image flipped horizontally but that is expected, the image will show correctly to the other people on the call.
- In order to enable/disable the VCM, PowerToys should run as administrator
- Changes to some of the VCM settings require the application to restart to pick up the new values such as a new overlay image.
- In some cases, the overlay image can be shown flipped vertically (the workaround is to edit the image and flip it before selecting it). (#6246)
- If the PowerToys Video Conference Mute webcam doesn't show up in the video conference app, try restarting the app and if still doesn't show up try restarting Windows.
Those who would like to try PowerToys for the first time can grab the version 0.46 installer from the app's GitHub page, but please note that this release is on the "Experimental" train, so only prerelease versions will be prompted for updates. In addition, this release will not be on WinGet. Microsoft is evaluating if this is something people would be interested in.
_small.jpg)
