How to Make Windows 11 Look and Feel Like Windows 10

[Admin]

Follow these tips to get Windows 11 to be more like Windows 10, complete with a different Start menu, taskbar and wallpaper.

How to Make Windows 11 Look and Feel Like Windows 10 : Read more

 

[ezst036]

All of this extra unnecessary work that people have to put in when doing an install of Windows 11, and yet they get mad at me when I say Linux is easier to install than Windows. As if these two are completely disconnected.

 

[USAFRet]

All of this extra unnecessary work that people have to put in when doing an install of Windows 11, and yet they get mad at me when I say Linux is easier to install than Windows. As if these two are completely disconnected.

No, people DON'T have to do all of that.
The GUI for Win 11 is so similar to 10, that if it takes you more than one day to get used to it...you're doing it wrong.

 

[Releximas]

Nowhere in these hacks and regedits do I see anything explicitly addressing reorienting the taskbar itself to the left, right or top of the screen vs being locked on the bottom.... note: I'm talking about the taskbar and not the iconography on the taskbar!

That's the reason I haven't "upgraded".... I'm used to my taskbar unfolding top to bottom from the left side of the screen like a book (since way back - Win95!), which (the last time I checked) Win 11 still doesn't allow - even with all the feedback complaints!

 

[ICollectTransformers]

All you need is a program called Start11 from Stardock software and you can even get the windows 7 look and feel with little effort or knowledge, and it gives you back a full and real start menu like we used to have and allows for resizing and reorienting the task bar.

 

[CmdrShepard]

All of this extra unnecessary work that people have to put in when doing an install of Windows 11, and yet they get mad at me when I say Linux is easier to install than Windows. As if these two are completely disconnected.

That can be done on the offline install image once and then when you install it's all there. Alternatively, you can put all changes into a reg file which you double-click after install and reboot for the changes to take effect. It's the same as having to manually tweak sysctl.conf on Linux after installation.

The GUI for Win 11 is so similar to 10, that if it takes you more than one day to get used to it...you're doing it wrong.

I could never get used to not having full context menu, because I am not the casual user who only ever uses copy/paste from it. Same goes for many other tweaks like Start being at lower left -- muscle memory is a bitch when you spent 35 years working on a PC.

The reason why start button was desgned in the corner is that it's easier to just smash the mouse cursor into the corner without even looking that way -- no aiming needed compared to it being in the center of the screen. Not every change is for the better, many of them are for the sake of change and done by people who have no consideration for such things.

 

[USAFRet]

The reason why start button was desgned in the corner is that

My "Start button" (the Windows button) is at the bottom left. Just like before. Easily selected in TaskBar settings.

I could never get used to not having full context menu

What is missing in your context menu(s)?

 

[ezst036]

No, people DON'T have to do all of that.

Someone is doing it, a whole lot of someones are doing it. Otherwise these programs would not even exist due to lack of demand; and also Windows 11 would've eclipsed Windows 10 in user base a long time ago. But people are consistently rejecting Windows 11 for known reasons.

Besides, it seems like every other week there is a new control panel being rushed out for use for these types of things and there is comment after comment by users here at Tom's griping either of the programs they do use, the programs they pay for,(some of these control panels I don't think are even free) or of the reasons they list in their stated refusal to upgrade to W11. W10 still commands well over 50%.

Every time one of these control panels get introduced its proof that Linux is easier to install. It just is. That's the fact. "Install and go" is gone from the default MS-provided Windows experience - that's a relic of a bye-gone era. Especially, especially in an era where Microsoft packs it full of advertisement delivery APIs. Ads on the start menu, ads in the weather app, wherever they are packing these ads in. I would be shocked to discover a decently tech-capable person who finds advertisements like this acceptable and doesn't remove them. Ads in an OS that people are paying money for is just uncivil.

That can be done on the offline install image once and then when you install it's all there.

Oh yeah, wow, how much extra work does _that_ take?

It's the same as having to manually tweak sysctl.conf on Linux after installation.

Luckily Linux distros got rid of that requirement in the 90's. Optionally, if you chose to make that choice, well, that's you. Its strange that Microsoft would take a two-decades-step backwards such as this when previously it was much, much easier to just install and go. Even stranger that someone would find it a point to brag about when one of two (Linux) doesn't have this requirement and hasn't for years.

 

[USAFRet]

Someone is doing it, a whole lot of someones are doing it. Otherwise these programs would not even exist due to lack of demand; and also Windows 11 would've eclipsed Windows 10 in user base a long time ago. But people are consistently rejecting Windows 11 for known reasons.

Very few people I know use those tools to make CurrentWindows look like OlderWindows. Both ubergeeks and regular people.

People aren't rejecting Win 11 due to UI changes. It is simply because there is no need to, and whatever PC they bought in the last several years is still working just fine with the already installed Win 10.

When they buy a new PC, it will come with Win 11, and they'll use that.

One might as you a similar question.
If Linux is so easy, why hasn't the uptake exploded in the 'regular people' community?

 

[coromonadalix]

24h2 block some software with known names ... or you have to disable software protection platfom ... and change their names ..

i could not install explorer patcher, paid start all is back is okay, but it is not enough, winaero tweaker will help a bit

i have an huge reg tweaks collection to help a bit define this damn win 11 behaviour


I REJECT win11 UI , it sucks, mostly the context menu pffffffff explorer is @@#$ paint is $%$%, they have destroyed what was good FOR ME

 

[Silas Sanchez]

If Linux is so easy, why hasn't the uptake exploded in the 'regular people' community?

Because:
a: Almost all good software isn't made for Linux, 95%+ of my stuff doesn't run on Linux. This alone is the big reason holding it back after all these years.

b: All software nowadays is slowly going subscription based or long term rent. Even when you pay for a lifetime license of some good software there is no guarantee you really own it because nowadays many have built in things that require you to constantly update (the software or even OS) an otherwise perfectly good software, this is how they stay in business, they dont make money when you buy a lifetime license and stay on a machine for 20years.

c: Linux distros have the most bland awful explorer interface, even far worse than windows. Its just a slapped up OS taken from a tablet. To this day the ONLY OS that actually looks good imo is good old Vista. I simple cant use linux as its just ugly and this makes it unusable to me.

 

[ezst036]

If Linux is so easy, why hasn't the uptake exploded in the 'regular people' community?

Ease isn't the issue. I'll give you a microcosm answer.

Even among coders, where Linux is known to have triumphed. Much of the dev community refuses to move to Linux simply because they cannot. Visual Studio holds them back. Not VS Code. Visual Studio.

The reason people use Linux is because Linux is great. The reason people use Windows is because of 3rd party applications. (Photoshop, Office, CAD, Visual Studio, a handful of game studios even block Linux/Valve/Steam, we could name hundreds of productivity apps if we tried)

 

[USAFRet]

Ease isn't the issue. I'll give you a microcosm answer.

Even among coders, where Linux is known to have triumphed. Much of the dev community refuses to move to Linux simply because they cannot. Visual Studio holds them back. Not VS Code. Visual Studio.

The reason people use Linux is because Linux is great. The reason people use Windows is because of 3rd party applications. (Photoshop, Office, CAD, Visual Studio, a handful of game studios even block Linux/Valve/Steam, we could name hundreds of productivity apps if we tried)

Exactly.

People mostly don't care about the OS. They use applications.

(and my question was mostly rhetorical/tongue in cheek. I already mostly knew the 'why')

 

[ezst036]

Exactly.

People mostly don't care about the OS. They use applications.

(and my question was mostly rhetorical/tongue in cheek. I already mostly knew the 'why')

This is a classical correlation/causation fallacy you're resting on. People clearly do use OSs otherwise nobody would be on Tom's complaining and Microsoft Windows would still have the 95% user base that it had during the XP days.

I figured you might try this fallacy which is why I used Visual Studio to begin with. There are many devs I have run into that "must have" VS but have chosen a Mac just to get the heck off of the Windows platform because it is that bad, even though anybody I have ever run into has always stated that VSMac is inferior to VS for Windows. I wouldn't know as I don't use them myself but it is what I hear.

They'll accept the inferior VS though even while trying to get their work done.

Because, just like the consistently declining user base of Windows now for nearly two decades, people do in fact use operating systems. Microsoft's former 95% to now their less than 75% is over a 20% swing.

That decline, that huge decline is not a statistical error as much as you would like it to be. When people state over and over again (without prompting) that they wish Photoshop would port so they can move, or AutoCAD would port so they can move, or the other one would port so they can leave Windows, you don't know the 'why' so you made up your own 'why' that makes you feel comfortable.

 

[USAFRet]

This is a classical correlation/causation fallacy you're resting on. People clearly do use OSs otherwise nobody would be on Tom's complaining and Microsoft Windows would still have the 95% user base that it had during the XP days.

I figured you might try this fallacy which is why I used Visual Studio to begin with. There are many devs I have run into that "must have" VS but have chosen a Mac just to get the heck off of the Windows platform because it is that bad, even though anybody I have ever run into has always stated that VSMac is inferior to VS for Windows. I wouldn't know as I don't use them myself but it is what I hear.

They'll accept the inferior VS though even while trying to get their work done.

Because, just like the consistently declining user base of Windows now for nearly two decades, people do in fact use operating systems. Microsoft's former 95% to now their less than 75% is over a 20% swing.

That decline, that huge decline is not a statistical error as much as you would like it to be. When people state over and over again (without prompting) that they wish Photoshop would port so they can move, or AutoCAD would port so they can move, or the other one would port so they can leave Windows, you don't know the 'why' so you made up your own 'why' that makes you feel comfortable.

Yes, of course people use the OS. Whatever it may be.
Its just that they don't care as much (IMHO) as geeks and tech writers like to think they do.

As I've mentioned recently...I've given people a laptop with Linux on it. She didn't even know or realize there was a difference and it didn't have "Windows" on it.

 

[Xectis]

Follow these tips to get Windows 11 to be more like Windows 10, complete with a different Start menu, taskbar and wallpaper.

How to Make Windows 11 Look and Feel Like Windows 10 : Read more

Unfortunately, none of the registry hacks work with the latest Windows 11 24H2 (Build 26100.1457)