New features shouldn't be enabled by default

[yiays]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.49.0

Running as admin

• Yes

Area(s) with issue?

General

Steps to reproduce

Install an update that introduces a new feature (like the update that added find my cursor).

✔️ Expected Behavior

Features should be disabled by default or there should be user education (like a pop-up explaining a feature and it's shortcut the first time it's triggered). Otherwise users can spend weeks dealing with an inconvenient feature that they might assume came in a system update and have no idea how to turn off.

❌ Actual Behavior

You'll find that there is no mention of new features when you update PowerToys and no education about this new feature, you'll just trigger it accidentally one day and get very confused. Arguably this is bad UX, even for power users.

Here's a humorous example of precisely this happening to a user of PowerToys. https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxvOC1Ts6hPA4hd27U5nFIbopvCQCuXYDT

Other Software

No response

[franky920920]

I'd like to change this issue a little bit:
The new feature should be enabled by default, but it needs an OOBE (out-of-box experience) after the update that implemented the new feature to introduce them to the users. :)

cc: @niels9001 Any ideas?

[niels9001]

There's a SCOOBE spec checked in a couple of weeks ago that provides a "What's new" dialog experience.

@dedavis6797

[VulcanTourist]

First, this new Find My Mouse feature should not have been enabled by default, catching distracted people not closely following development lately by surprise... and not in a good way. I had to discover it entirely by accident while I was playing a Steam survival game, when accidentally tapping [Ctrl] twice during the game activated this mystifying lightened circle around the targeting reticle in the game.

Second, as I not-so-subtlely hinted above, the Game Mode option, which is also active by default, does not work when the mode fails to recognize that the focused process is in fact a game. Please don't implement that option at all unless you can further generalize it to work for all games. Alternative suggestion: check the active Power Profile; if the current profile is High Performance or similar, it's probably a better bet than the unreliable Game Mode that a game is being played.

[Aaron-Junker]

We have a open spec for showing the user what changed after an update: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/blob/main/doc/specs/SCOOBE.md

[franky920920]

@Aaron-Junker The roadmap there needs an update. :D

[Aaron-Junker]

@Aaron-Junker The roadmap there needs an update. :D

Cc: @dedavis6797

[crutkas]

Closing this against SCOOBE. #14536

by default, new stuff historically is always on by default since the reboot of PowerToys. We try hard to make people aware in our change logs / readme updates.