- The lengths people will go
to keep using Windows is astonishing.
But the fact of the matter is,
every new version, including Windows 11,
has some amazing new features
that you don't wanna miss out on,
at the cost of a bunch of new annoyances
you'll have to get used to.
Or you can get mad,
and take it in your own hands,
and you don't even have to be an elite power user to do it.
So let me show you how the average user
can de-crapify Windows 11 and make it the way
it should've been to begin with.
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- The task bar and start menu are arguably
the biggest sources of annoyance in Windows 11.
And there's no shortage of fixes for that.
By far the most comprehensive available so far,
is StartAllBack.
It's just currently in its release candidate phase.
It's so comprehensive that it addresses
almost every major issue many will have
with Windows 11's new UI, full stop.
Not only can it make the start menu less,
whatever this is,
by restoring it to a more Windows seven like state,
but it comes with its own search engine
that doesn't rely on the Bingafied search,
that Microsoft's been using since Windows 10.
The task bar itself can be modified dramatically
with this rather fetching segmented look
that makes the center task bar make a lot more sense
while freeing up desktop real estate,
otherwise used by a solid bar.
I actually kind of like this look,
although you can just go for the classic style,
if that's more your jam.
That's not where the Windows seven and 10
styling stops though,
because you can also use it for the corner icons too.
By default Windows 11 bundles the volume control
with wifi and Bluetooth in the new control center,
which can make things a little trickier to do quickly.
But with StartAllBack,
you can separate these icons into their own functions,
just like old times.
In fact, you can even restore Explorer
to the Windows seven or 10 layout complete with ribbon UI.
and it can make the old right-click menus
the default, instead of the new simplified ones
that hide your third-party extensions.
Oh, and even weirdos
who like to move the task bar around,
can put it anywhere they want albeit with the caveat
that fly outs will still come from the bottom right corner
of the screen, unless you're using
the Windows seven or 10 styles.
There's more that StartAllBack can do too,
but they're not the only game in town.
Meet Start11 by Stardock.
This does a lot of the same stuff as StartAllBack,
but some of the extended functionality is different.
Particularly when it comes to integration
with the broader object desktop suite.
Stardock's start menu replacement
has a more accurate Windows 10 style
as well as an original modern design,
that's different from anything Microsoft has done to date.
Customization is also a bigger focus overall for Start11,
with custom textures, actions and direct controls
for transparency, blur and color to dial it in just right.
Unfortunately, both StartAllBack and Start11
are paid software.
But the good news is that each only costs five bucks, once.
As of right now,
there aren't any officially supported
free options for Windows 11.
I mean, you can use Open-Shell,
which is a free Start Menu replacement for Windows 10,
but it runs behind the regular Start Menu
and only opens if you hit the Windows key,
which is less than ideal.
So, what can you get away with for free?
First, you can left-align your Taskbar.
This is something that Microsoft has mercifully added
an option for, which you can find
in the Taskbar settings under the Taskbar behaviors,
simple and free.
If you want classic, Right-click menus
or to move your Taskbar to the top of the screen,
both of these can be done with a couple
of simple registry tweaks
without even having to install anything.
I'll link those down below.
Now if you really liked the concept
of that centered Taskbar dock from StartAllBack,
then good news RoundedTB is free and will do the same thing.
You'll need to use Taskbar Settings to choose the alignment,
but once you dial it in, it looks pretty snazzy,
if you ask me.
Unlike StartAllBack though,
the menu itself is still in the middle with this method.
It's got baked in support for another app
called TranslucentTB, that allows you to customize
the visual style of the bar,
but there are performance ramifications for doing this.
So it's not recommended by the developers right now.
TaskbarX can do some of the same stuff,
and it does a bit more with behavior rather than appearance.
If you want a more tweaky tool for the task bar.
But as cool as all this is,
there's still something missing for Windows 11,
live tiles.
If you grew to love them since their introduction
in Windows eight, then good news!
Microsoft removed them in Windows 11, wait,
that's not good at this at all.
No, no, the good news is an intrepid developer decided
to create a free program to put live tiles
wherever the heck you want on both Windows 10 and 11.
Put them in the start menu,
put them on the desktop as widgets, it doesn't matter.
Your app doesn't even have to have a live tile.
It can grab notifications and use those to make it live.
It's pretty sweet or at least it's a start.
What if you also happen to hate the new rounded Windows?
Well, that's a little trickier.
Win11Disable or restore rounded corners,
is a creatively named app
that does exactly what it says on the tin.
By modifying the desktop window manager DLL
to remove the rounded corner bits entirely.
That's a potential security risk since it requires
the renditions of the file to be modified.
Plus you'll need to reapply the patch
if the file ever gets an update from Microsoft.
But if you do break something,
there's always system restore and the upside is,
you need only run the app and reboot
to once again gaze upon the glory of 90 degree corners,
just like God intended.
Speaking of intentions,
I'm not sure you can give Microsoft much benefit
of the doubt on making it way more difficult
to change your default browser than it was on Windows 10,
thankfully, Mozilla reverse engineered edge's
one click switch method for Firefox.
For those of you with more Google centric browser,
you'll still have to painstakingly make
the changes yourself,
but you'll notice that even if you get
a different web browser set as the default,
no matter what method you use,
Microsoft edge will still launch from time to time
when clicking on links or accessing Windows help.
Enter Edge Deflector,
a simple little app that registers itself
to handle a special hidden Microsoft edge link type,
passing it on to your default browser.
After the first time setting it as a default,
you'll never see edge again, hopefully.
And now for the bonus round,
all the stuff that I think is useful,
that's not Windows 11 specific.
Starting with AltDrag,
if you've used Linux you'll know that this title refers
to the ability to hold a keyboard key down
and then click anywhere in a window to drag it around.
Something that can help with productivity
and is particularly useful for touch screens.
It's a little old now,
and doesn't directly support Aero snap,
but it's got its own snap feature built in,
that kind of mimics it.
Another app called sizer can help with that though.
It allows you to position and size Windows
quickly and accurately.
It's a fair bit faster than dragging the window
around manually even to use with snap.
Twinkle Tray's an app that people with notebooks
and surface devices might appreciate.
It lets you change the brightness
of even external displays.
And while it doesn't smoothly step through
the brightness levels like modern laptops,
what's really cool is you can set minimum and maximum values
for each monitor to normalize them.
So you can control all the displays at once
whenever you change the brightness.
Combine this with scheduled brightness changes
and another app called auto dark mode,
and you've got a pretty great setup IMO,
complete with time-based desktop wallpaper switching.
Twinkle tray hooks into the onscreen display control
via DDC/CI, which is supported by most displays since
the late 2000's and is a whole rabbit hole all on its own.
Finally, I would be remiss to talk about
de-crapifying Windows, If I didn't talk about PowerToys.
These are small apps developed by Microsoft
for the purpose of extending Windows for power users.
And some, like virtual desktops, have even graduated
to flagship features today.
Some of them like SVG preview seem like
they should probably be baked into Windows
without any further questions asked,
but then there's others like FancyZones.
That's an app that lets you partition your displays
and set up custom layouts for apps.
It's something that I would actually say is super useful
for ultra wide users and almost non-negotiable
for super ultra wide users or users
of big TV displays like Linus.
Microsoft even made a spotlight-esk search tool,
proving that yes, they can do it properly.
They just hide it away as a power toy.
Get subscribed by the way, because yes,
we are going to be reviewing Windows 11
in its current state, and based on what you've seen today,
we've definitely got some things to say.
There's a ton of other stuff around,
like alternative file managers,
like One Commander file copiers, like TeraCopy,
process managers like Prio or Process Lasso,
that say priorities and CPU affinities,
and many, many more tweaks.
But for now let's turn it over to you.
Are there any tweaks or utilities that you use
that we didn't cover?
Let us know in the comments down below,
and hey, maybe we can make a regular thing out
of this kind of video.
Just like we make regular things that have sponsors
to segways like this book that (mumbles)
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- Thanks for watching guys,
this is kind of a different video.
So maybe you go check out our video on Windows 10
ameliorated for another take on how to fix Windows.
That project no longer exists.
So think of it as a fun little time capsule.