What's new

What changed in each version of WinShades. If you installed WinShades from the Microsoft Store, it tells you when an update is ready; if your organisation installed it for you, they decide when to update.

1.3.0

Released 29 September 2026

• Better dictation in more languages. Text Tools now tells you when a more accurate speech model is available for the language you dictate in, and downloads it in a click. Norwegian, Hindi and Bengali get models trained for those languages; most others can have OpenAI's most accurate Whisper model. Every one was tested on real speech, and Text Tools shows how often each gets words wrong.
• Three more languages: Hindi, Bengali (Bangladesh) and Chinese (Simplified). Chinese dictation comes out punctuated and in Simplified characters.
• Faster dictation on PCs with a graphics card, which WinShades now uses when it can. The built-in speech model is also smaller, so WinShades is quicker to download.
• Choose how your text looks in Text Tools: larger text, a different font, 1.5 or double line spacing, and a cream, peach or shade-coloured background, from the Aa button beside the language. Ctrl and the mouse wheel change the size too. Text Tools remembers your choice.
• Use your own speech model, such as one your IT team provides, by choosing the file.
• Update notice. The Microsoft Store version tells you when an update is ready, and installs it when you say.
• Help now has a support contact, and the licences of the software WinShades is built with.
• Fixes: choosing a language in Text Tools no longer switches your keyboard to it; Read Aloud now says so when no voice on your PC can read the text's script, rather than staying silent; Chinese no longer points you to Windows settings for a spell checker Windows doesn't have; Help is now an ordinary window, so it no longer covers other apps or hides their messages.

1.2.1

Released September 2026

• Norwegian dictation works. It had been given the wrong language code and produced gibberish.
• Read Aloud in Text Tools reads in a voice for the language you've chosen, and tells you when there isn't one on your PC.
• Fix: clicking the tray icon while WinShades was still starting could close it.

1.2.0

Released September 2026

• Dictation runs on your own PC. It needs no internet connection and no Windows speech pack, and works in every language WinShades offers, including ones Windows couldn't dictate at all.
• Text Tools brings spell check and dictation into one window, with grammar proofreading, reading aloud and a language of your choice.
• WinShades starts in the language Windows is set to, so British spellings are no longer marked as mistakes.
• Fixes: overlays close with the window they are attached to, even when its application keeps running in the background; a letterbox no longer draws over a window placed in front of it; and reopening the fullscreen letterbox no longer closes WinShades.