e542b82a2a
## Summary of the Pull Request Quick Accent passes the owner letter's key-down to the rest of the low-level keyboard hook chain. When activation is canceled before the configured threshold, trigger-key modes currently swallow the matching key-up. This leaves downstream keyboard state reporting the letter as held and causes Keyboard Manager's shortcut-to-shortcut safety check to reject later remaps. This change forwards the owner letter's key-up on that false-start path, balancing the event pair for downstream hooks and applications. Successful Quick Accent activation behavior is unchanged. Partial fix: #38089 ## PR Checklist - [ ] Closes - [ ] **Communication:** Root cause, deterministic reproduction, and validation were posted on #38089; awaiting core-contributor review - [ ] **Tests:** No automated low-level keyboard-hook test seam is available; extensive manual validation is documented below - [x] **Localization:** No end-user-facing strings changed - [x] **Dev docs:** No developer documentation changes are required for this targeted bug fix - [x] **New binaries:** No new binaries were added - [ ] **Documentation updated:** No user-facing documentation change is required ## Detailed Description of the Pull Request / Additional comments The false-start path runs when the owner letter is released before Quick Accent's activation threshold. Its key-down was already allowed through by `OnKeyDown`, but `OnKeyUp` returned `true` for the Space/arrow activation modes. Returning `true` from the low-level hook prevents later hooks and the target application from receiving the release. Keyboard Manager intentionally checks that no unrelated key is held before applying a shortcut-to-shortcut remap. The missing release therefore makes several remaps stop together while both PowerToys processes remain responsive. It also explains why locking and unlocking the Windows session restores them: the stale keyboard state is reset. The fix is intentionally in Quick Accent rather than relaxing Keyboard Manager's safety check, which must continue to reject remaps when unrelated keys are genuinely held. Full captured evidence and source analysis: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/38089#issuecomment-5171089872 ## Validation Steps Performed - Built `PowerAccentKeyboardService` from current `main` in Release x64: 0 warnings, 0 errors. Spectre mitigation was disabled for the local build because the corresponding Visual Studio libraries were not installed. - Built and installed the same change against PowerToys 0.100.2 so the test DLL matched the installed release ABI. - Repeated dozens of false activations with E/N/O/Y by pressing Space and releasing the owner letter before the 500 ms threshold. - Interleaved successful Quick Accent selections to verify normal activation still worked. - Captured `GetAsyncKeyState` transitions and confirmed both the letter and Space changed from down to up; all sampled keys remained up after testing. - Continuously tested a Left Shift+O -> Left Alt+Tab Keyboard Manager remap; it remained functional throughout. - Completed an additional user soak test without recurrence; locking/unlocking was no longer required.
Microsoft PowerToys
Microsoft PowerToys is a collection of utilities that help you customize Windows and streamline everyday tasks.
Installation · Documentation · Blog · Release notes
🔨 Utilities
PowerToys includes over 30 utilities to help you customize and optimize your Windows experience:
Advanced Paste
Always on Top
Awake
Color Picker
Command Not Found
Command Palette
Crop And Lock
Environment Variables
FancyZones
File Explorer Add-ons
File Locksmith
Grab And Move
Hosts File Editor
Image Resizer
Keyboard Manager
Light Switch
Mouse Utilities
Mouse Without Borders
New+
Peek
PowerDisplay
PowerRename
PowerToys Run
Quick Accent
Registry Preview
Screen Ruler
Shortcut Guide
Text Extractor
Workspaces
ZoomIt📦 Installation
For detailed installation instructions and system requirements, visit the installation docs.
But to get started quickly, choose one of the installation methods below:
Download the .exe file from GitHub
Go to the PowerToys GitHub releases, scroll down and select Assets to reveal the installation files, and choose the one that matches your architecture and install scope. For most devices, that would be x64 per-user.
Microsoft Store
You can easily install PowerToys from the Microsoft Store:
WinGet
Download PowerToys from [WinGet](https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli#installing-the-client). Updating PowerToys via winget will respect the current PowerToys installation scope. To install PowerToys, run the following command from the command line / PowerShell:
- User scope installer (default)
winget install Microsoft.PowerToys -s winget
- Machine-wide scope installer
winget install --scope machine Microsoft.PowerToys -s winget
Other methods
There are [community driven install methods](https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/powertoys/install#community-driven-install-tools) such as Chocolatey and Scoop. If these are your preferred install solutions, you can find the install instructions there.
✨ What's new?
To see what's new, check out the release notes.
🛣️ Roadmap
We are planning some nice new features and improvements for the next releases – a brand-new Shortcut Guide experience, ensuring it's easier to find and install Command Palette extensions and so much more! Stay tuned for v0.100!
❤️ PowerToys Community
The PowerToys team is extremely grateful to have the support of an amazing active community. The work you do is incredibly important. PowerToys wouldn't be nearly what it is today without your help filing bugs, updating documentation, guiding the design, or writing features. We want to say thank you and take time to recognize your work. Your contributions and feedback improve PowerToys month after month!
Contributing
This project welcomes contributions of all types. Besides coding features / bug fixes, other ways to assist include spec writing, design, documentation, and finding bugs. We are excited to work with the power user community to build a set of tools for helping you get the most out of Windows. We ask that before you start work on a feature that you would like to contribute, please read our Contributor's Guide. We would be happy to work with you to figure out the best approach, provide guidance and mentorship throughout feature development, and help avoid any wasted or duplicate effort. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you grant us the rights to use your contribution and that you have permission to do so. For guidance on developing for PowerToys, please read the developer docs for a detailed breakdown. This includes how to setup your computer to compile.
Code of conduct
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct.
Privacy statement
The application logs basic diagnostic data (telemetry). For more privacy information and what we collect, see our PowerToys Data and Privacy documentation.