PowerToys 0.48.1 Experimental includes Video Conference Mute utility and one fix

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.

Last week, Microsoft released PowerToys version 0.47.1 to address stability issues and fix bugs. Today, the company has rolled out version 0.48.1 which inlcudes the Video Conference Mute utility and everything in 0.47.1. 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 0.47.1 release.

The change log for PowerToys 0.48.1 Experimental, can be seen below:

Change log

• Fixed an issue with the first hotkey input in the settings being focused when the page loads. Prevents unintentional shortcut reassignment. Thanks @niels9001!

To find out more about the Video conference mute utility, which is still in Preview, head over to the Video Conference Mute overview. There's also a bunch of known issues in this version, 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 let us know 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 0.48.1 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.