Microsoft understands how you want Home windows to search. That, at the very least, would seem to be the company’s concept with Windows 11. It can make significant variations to the person interface and carries on the craze of creating consumer customization much more tough. It’s not at present possible to entirely revert Home windows 11 to the look for Home windows 10 and, presented Microsoft’s current angle in direction of UI customization, it may never be. Still, there are several crucial tweaks that can make you a lot more at ease.
Home windows 11’s most clear style change is the relocation of the Home windows Begin menu from its common house nestled on the taskbar’s still left side to the heart of the taskbar. Fortunately, this transform is easy to revert.
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Open the Windows Start menu and then the Configurations app. In Settings, navigate to Personalization, then Taskbar, and open up Taskbar behaviors. You are going to see a industry labeled Taskbar alignment with a fall-down menu. Change the drop-dox menu from Centre to Left.
The transform normally takes area promptly.
Get rid of new icons
When we’re below, let us disable the new icons added by Windows 11. These are also in the Taskbar segment of Personalization options. You will see a record labeled “Taskbar items” that features four selections: Search, Job view, Widgets, and Chat. Use the toggles subsequent to each and every to flip all four icons off.
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An essential note about Look for: there is presently no way to restore the comprehensive Search area from the Windows 10 taskbar. Turning off the new Search icon usually means you just cannot entry Look for by clicking a subject or icon on the taskbar. It will nevertheless be accessible through the Windows + S keyboard shortcut, on the other hand.
Microsoft is kind enough to allow you simply transform the Begin menu’s location and take away some icons, but the Begin menu itself is a different tale. You are going to will need to use a third-social gathering plan.
The absolutely free solution is Open up-Shell, an open up-supply application (previously regarded as Typical Shell) that can replace the get started menu. Download the program and set up it. However, make confident to disable Vintage Explorer and Vintage IE all through set up. If you don’t, Open-Shell will also modify Home windows Explorer in a way that does not vibe with the look of Home windows 10.
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After mounted, open the application known as Open-Shell Menu Configurations. Pick out the Windows 7 design menu and then open the Skin tab. I made use of the Fluent-Metro pores and skin for this guide. In real truth, it features much more like a Windows 7 Start off Menu with Windows 10 coat of paint, but it was the ideal pores and skin I could uncover.
When Open up-Shell functions alright, it is not fantastic. It can not appropriately change the Commence Menu and doesn’t restore Home windows 10 functions.
Stardock’s Start out11 is an a lot easier selection. It doesn’t have the Get started menu icon difficulty of Open up-Shell and involves no installation of supplemental information to provide an beautiful menu in the Metro design design and style. Begin11 expenditures $5, nevertheless, so you are going to have to decide if its relieve-of-use is value the price tag. We’ve tested Commence11 (as properly as alternate StartAllBack, yet another $5 program) and extremely propose the two if you’re intrigued in earning Windows 11 look more like Home windows 10. People applications can also aid you skirt all-around some of Home windows 11’s taskbar woes.
Improve icons
The taskbar icons in Home windows 11 are pretty identical to Home windows 10, so you might not sense the need to have to adjust them. Other icons throughout the operating system are appreciably distinctive.
First, download a Windows 10 icon pack. A assortment of these can be located online: I utilised a Windows 10 Establish 10125 icon pack. Area your icons in a folder you can conveniently remember.
Let us begin with desktop icons. Open up the Configurations application, pick Personalization, open up Themes, and then Desktop Icons. A menu will appear with the five common desktop icons present. Simply click an icon you want to adjust and then tap Modify icon. Navigate to wherever you positioned the icon pack, pick the icon you want to use, and then tap Open. I have replaced the Recycle Bin icons in the screenshot beneath.
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You can also modify the icons of personal folders and shortcuts. Correct-simply click on an product and open Attributes, then head to the Personalize tab. At the bottom you’ll see the Improve Icon button. Click on it and select an icon you’d like to use as explained in the prior paragraph.
Regretably, Windows 11 doesn’t let you adjust some icons, most notably the new icons for drives and user folders in Home windows Explorer. You can use Travel Icon Changer to improve generate icons, on the other hand.
Disable rounded corners
Spherical corners are vital to the new search of Windows 11. Not all people loves them, however, and there’s additional terrible news. It’s not at the moment achievable to alter them by way of Windows 11 itself or a third-social gathering resolution.
You do have one particular alternative. Home windows 11 will revert to square corners if you transform off hardware graphics acceleration (this will also switch off other visual options like transparency).
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Perfectly, there is one other option: you can disable your graphics hardware. Open up System Manager, expand Screen Adapters, and correct-click the display adapter mentioned. Choose Disable Unit. Your monitor will flicker a minute but, when Windows returns, the rounded corners will be long gone.
I really do not propose this, nonetheless. Disabling your graphics components will lead to the Windows UI to really feel sluggish and stilted, and you will not be capable to use 3D apps or game titles till you transform the hardware back again on.
Transform the wallpaper
Past, but least, you can restore the first Home windows 10 wallpaper. This is not included with Windows 11, but is readily available from a range of resources online, this kind of as this 4K sample on Imgur.
Right-simply click the impression soon after you obtain it and then find Established as desktop qualifications. The alter will acquire influence immediately.
Where by to go from here
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Home windows 10 purists will be dissatisfied to listen to this leaves several options of Home windows 11, like the new context menu and File Explorer, in the functioning method. A selection of registry hacks circulating online assert to partly or totally disable these options, but in my screening they both induced side outcomes or, in a lot of situations, didn’t perform at all—likely simply because Windows 11 has received several updates more than the previous number of months.
Hold an eye on jobs that purpose to assistance users adjust the seem and really feel of Home windows 11, these kinds of as ThisIsWin11. This undertaking is not specially practical for now simply because it largely replicates tweaks you can achieve manually, but it may evolve into a much more feature-loaded possibility.
It also would not hurt to allow Microsoft know that you’d like much more customization possibilities. A lot of this in the end falls on Microsoft, which has step by step removed possibilities for customizing the Home windows interface about time.
For now, love the improvements you have built. It might not fully restore Home windows 10, but hey—at minimum the Start menu is fixed.
Editor’s note: This write-up at first published on Oct 7, 2021, but was up-to-date to include hyperlinks to our evaluations of Start11 and StartAllBack.
