Author Topic: How to run Windows 11 with the looks and feel of Windows 10  (Read 135 times)

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There are lots of reasons to upgrade to the preview version of Windows 11, but that doesn't mean you have to live with all aspects of the new user interface. Perhaps, like me, you don't like the new Start Menu because it takes up so much space. Or maybe you hate the fact that File Explorer is missing a ribbon menu or that right click menus only hold 7 options and force you to click "Show more options" to see them all.

The good news is that, with a combination of registry tweaks, third-party apps and some different art work, you can get some of the look and feel of Windows 10 back in Windows 11. The bad news is that Microsoft doesn't seem to want you to go back to a previous UI so it may disable any registry hacks you use in future updates. And these are hacks for a frequently-changing beta OS so there's no guarantee you won't run into bugs; proceed at your own risk.

Below, we'll outline a number of tweaks for different parts of the UI and you can use one, several, or all of them to get the look you want.

Get a More Windows 10-Like Start Menu
Sadly, at the moment, there's no way to bring back the exact Windows 10 Start menu. You can, however, install one of at least three third-party utilities that give you a menu design that's similar to Windows 7, which in its own way, is much closer to the look of Windows 10's menu, depending on how you customize it.

And if, like me, what you dislike most about Windows 11's Start menu is how much screen real estate it takes up and how far apart the icons are, using one of these utilities is a great fix. We have a more detailed tutorial on how to replace the Windows 11 Start menu, but we'll also outline the basic steps below.

First, you need to choose which Start menu utility to install. The three main choices are:

Open-Shell: Free, open source and does not require any registry hacks to work with its own shell-shaped Start button. If you want the Windows 10 icon for your start button, you will need to use the classic taskbar registry hack.
StartIsBack++: Looks more polished than Open-Shell. Needs classic taskbar hack (see below) to work properly. Costs $3.99 but has a 30-day trial, after which it works with some diminished functionality.
Start10: Perhaps the most polished looking, this costs $4.99 and also has a 30-day trial and requires a registry hack to work at all.
If you install Open-Shell and don't want to have the bugs you get from bringing back the classic taskbar -- all of which we'll get to below -- all you need to do after setting up the program is to shift the taskbar icons to the left. To do that, just right click on the taskbar, select Taskbar Settings and then navigate to Taskbar Behaviors and choose Left from the alignment menu.

Your Start button, which looks like a shell unless you upload a custom one, will then cover the Windows 11 button, and it will work.

However, if you want to use Open-Shell and get the accurate Windows 10 Start button icon, you will need to restore the Windows 10 classic task bar and set Open-Shell not to Replace the Start button. The classic taskbar has its own Windows 10 Start button, so it will use that.

Get Windows 10's Classic Taskbar
If you want the most Windows 10-like experience, you can bring back Windows 10's classic taskbar in Windows 11 . . . at least for now. You need to use this method right now if you choose to use StartIsBack++ or Start10 or if you want to use Open-Shell and get the correct Windows 10 icon as your Start button.

There's a simple registry tweak that will get you the classic taskbar, but before we go there, note the trade-offs. First, this is a registry hack that Microsoft is likely to disable at some point because the company clearly wants you to use the Windows 11 taskbar.  

Second, a few icons on this bar don't work and need to be hidden or disabled. There's a search box, but clicking it does nothing, and you may see a Cortana button that does nothing. The Task View button is worse than useless as it crashes when you click it, causing the taskbar to hide your icons for a minute or two while it recovers, so you should hide it also. Considering that the Windows 11 taskbar's Task View and search buttons work, this is a loss of functionality. However, you can search directly from the Start menu and hit Windows key + Tab to get the Task View menu.

On the bright side, enabling the classic taskbar also gives you back the Windows 10 File manager (with ribbon) and the Windows 10 right click context menus. However, if you don't use the classic taskbar, you can get those back in another way, which we'll explain in a section later. It also allows you to unlock the taskbar and drag it to the sides or top of the screen.

If you're willing to live with the downsides, here are the steps for getting the Windows 10 taskbar in Windows 11. Make sure your third-party Start menu app is installed before you take these steps.

1. Open Regedit. You can get there by hitting Windows key + R and typing regedit into the run box.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell\Update\Packages

3. Create a DWORD (32-bit) Value called UndockingDisabled and set its value to 1. You create new values by right-clicking in the right pane of Regedit and selecting New->DWORD (32-bit) Value, then renaming the entry to the appropriate name and double-clicking on it to get the value dialog box.

4. Close Regedit and restart Windows. You'll now have the classic Windows 10 Start menu and, if you installed your third-party Start menu, a working Start menu that is more compact than Windows 11's and has a built-in search function.

However, you'll notice that the clock, volume control and network icons are missing from the right side of the taskbar. You'll want to get them back.

5. Hit Windows key + R and enter shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}  to launch the notification control panel.

6. Click "Turn system icons on or off."

7. Toggle Clock, Volume and Network to On then Click Ok.

You'll have those icons back on the right side of the taskbar, but next, you should hide the icons you can't use, particularly the Task View button that crashes when you click it.

8. Right click on the desktop and select Personalize.

9. Open the Taskbar submenu.

10. Toggle Task View to off.

If you really want to, you can leave the search box and/or Cortana button in place since they don't cause any harm, but they also don't do anything, so you'll probably want to hide them.

11. Right click the taskbar and highlight Show Cortana button to make it disappear.

12. Open Regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search

13. Set Searchbox TaskbarMode to 0.

14. Close Regedit and restart Windows.

Ungrouping Taskbar Icons
One Windows 10 feature you might miss is the ability to maintain separate taskbar icons for each of your windows. By default Windows 10 and 11 both combine all your windows from a particular program -- for example, your web browser -- into a single icon, which you must hover over to see the window titles. However, in Windows 10 and -- if you use the Windows 10 classic taskbar in Windows 11 -- you can change this behavior.

To ungroup your taskbar icons in Windows 11, you must have the classic taskbar enabled and then do the following:

1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer in Regedit.

2. Create a DWORD (32-bit) Value called NoTaskGrouping, if it doesn't already exist, and set it to 1. (h/t to user Dacrone on the Windows Eleven Forum for sharing this).

3. Close Regedit and restart Windows.

You should now see separate icons for every window you have, including and especially browser windows.
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