Microsoft PowerToys v0.101.2492.0 Preview Adds WinUI 3 Migration and Multiple Clocks
Microsoft released PowerToys v0.101.2492.0 Preview today, September 7, 2026. If you're running the preview channel, you'll see four headline changes immediately. The Color Picker finally migrates to WinUI 3. The Command Palette gains support for multiple configurable clocks. Awake now respects the Windows lock state. And the PowerDisplay CLI adds JSON Lines output for scripting.
This update continues the steady march of PowerToys moving off WPF and onto the Windows App SDK. The Color Picker port is the biggest chunk of code shipped in this release. It's followed by a community-requested feature in the Command Palette and a practical power-saving fix for Awake.
Color Picker Moves to WinUI 3
The Color Picker has been ported from legacy WPF to WinUI 3. Yu Leng (moooyo) led the effort with 91 commits in the pull request. The module swapped System.Windows for Microsoft.UI.Xaml. You get a zoom magnifier that uses Win2D CanvasControl now. The old WPF ShaderEffect is gone. There's also a brightness-adaptive pixel grid with SineEase animations for zooming in.
MEF got replaced by Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection. Clipboard handling uses WinRT DataPackage. Native interop moved off System.Windows.Point. 482 unit tests passed for the new module. Runtime tracing at 150% DPI confirmed the zoom handoff stays smooth during rapid reversals.
Command Palette Gets Multiple Clocks
Jiří Polášek (jiripolasek) shipped the multi-clock feature. You can now pin custom clocks to the dock band. Each clock has its own time zone, title, and format. A centralized service updates all of them in sync. There's also a relative date format that handles time zone-induced date changes correctly.
Context menu items for copying time now rename themselves based on the actual format. The PR includes fixes for the Remote Desktop extension too. It now filters and ranks connections using search text. Dock item activation with Enter and Space keys works as expected now.
Awake Now Respects Lock State
Before this release, Awake would demand the display stay on even when Windows was locked. You couldn't save power overnight while letting downloads run. Ambrózy Lőrinc (Meister1977) fixed this. The tool now uses WTSQuerySessionInformationW to check lock state. It listens for session switches and adjusts the awake state accordingly.
Thread safety is handled by a StateLock. If you leave your PC running renders and lock it now, the display can finally sleep. Unlocked behavior remains unchanged.
PowerDisplay CLI Gains JSON Lines
The PowerDisplay CLI has a new --json flag. It emits compact JSON Lines to stdout. Errors go to stderr. This makes it much easier to pipe display info into other tools. All six result types support the new format. 108 unit tests passed.
Other Changes
Keyboard Manager had a validation bug where duplicates weren't caught correctly during key remap editing. MasaYan24 fixed the comparison logic. PowerToys Run got a "New Chat for Claude" plugin added to the third-party list. CI got some speed bumps removed. Settings search-index generation is disabled in Debug builds now.
The WinUI 3 migration is a long-term play for Microsoft. It gives PowerToys a consistent look with Windows 11 and removes cross-framework issues. The multi-clock feature shows the Command Palette is becoming more than just a search box.
Head here to the GitHub releases page to grab the installers. The x64 executables are around 285 MB.
