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 want to 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 into 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 decrapify Windows 11 and make it the way
it should have been to begin with war thunder is an online military
vehicle combat game that's free to play and a lot of fun try it for free down
below today and get some special bonus items for signing up
the taskbar 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 start all back 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 7 like state but it comes with its own search engine that doesn't
rely on the bingified search that microsoft's been using since Windows 10.
the taskbar itself can be modified dramatically with this rather fetching
segmented look that makes the centered taskbar make a lot more sense while
freeing up desktop real estate otherwise used by a solid bur 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 7 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 wi-fi and bluetooth in the new control center which can make things
a little trickier to do quickly but with start all back you can separate these
icons into their own functions just like old times
in fact you can even restore explorer to the Windows 7 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 taskbar around can put it anywhere they
want albeit with the caveat that flyouts will still come from the bottom right
corner of the screen unless you're using the Windows 7 or 10 styles there's more
that start all back can do too but they're not the only game in town meet
start 11 by stardock this does a lot of the same stuff as
start all back 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 start 11 with custom
textures actions and direct controls for transparency blur and color to dial it
in just right unfortunately both start all back and start 11 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. 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 like the concept of that centered taskbar
dock from start all back then good news rounded tb 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 start all back though the menu
itself is still in the middle with this method it's got baked in support for
another app called translucent tb 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 taskbar x can do some of the same stuff
and does a bit more with behavior rather than appearance if you want a more
tweaky tool for the taskbar but as cool as all this is
there's still something missing from Windows 11 live tiles if you agree to
love them since their introduction in Windows 8 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 route of Windows well that's a
little trickier with 11 disable 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 remissions 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 to 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 at
edge's one-click switch method for firefox for those of you with a 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 alt drag 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 aerosnap 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 is 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 on-screen display control via ddcci which is supported by most
displays since the late 2000s and is a whole rabbit hole all on its own
finally i would be remiss to talk about
decrapifying Windows if i didn't talk about power toys 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 previews seem like they should probably be baked into
Windows without any further questions asked but then there's others like fancy
zones 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 ultrawide users and almost non-negotiable for super ultra wide
users or users of big tv displays like Linus microsoft even made a spotlight
ask 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 save 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 out of sponsors to segues like this
war thunder is a free-to-play online military vehicle combat game that's
available on Windows mac Linux playstation 4 playstation 5 xbox one and
xbox series snx with cross play there
are more than 50 million players from all over the world and it features an
incredible arsenal of more than 2 000 historically accurate playable tanks
aircraft and ships from the 1930s to the 1990s you can participate in massive
combined arms battles on over 80 major battlefields from world war ii to the
end of the cold war and there's always active development with free major
updates every couple of months that add even more content that includes vehicles
maps and new gameplay features so head to the link below and start playing war
thunder for free you'll also be able to get a free bonus premium vehicle just
for signing up thanks for watching guys this is kind of a different video so
maybe 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