Alternative Windows 11 start menus

SUCCESS!!!!!

As expected, after upgrading to build 8457 Classic Explorer Bar disappeared. I then did the Registry fix (see my earlier post). It did not apply immediately, but after restart the Classic Explorer Bar appeared again! YES!!!!

Windows Update asked to restart the computer and I am now at Windows 11 25H2 build 26200.8655 Let's hope I won't have any issues. The Registry hack I did to make Classic Explorer Bar of Open Shell work again is still working. Classic Explorer Bar still appears and works properly on File Explorer windows. Any other known issues? Of course I will report anything I find. Thanks.

Compatibility report: I just updated my main PC (see 2nd system specs) to build 8737. So far nothing suspicious, haven't discovered any issues. Also the customized system icons didn't revert to the default Windows 11 icons, which means the respective modified system files were not replaced. Finally, Open Shell including Classic Explorer Bar in File Explorer stills works OK, so the relevant Registry modification still works. I will post again if I see anything off.

Compatibility report: I just updated my main PC (see 2nd system specs) to build 8875. So far nothing suspicious, haven't discovered any issues. Also the customized system icons didn't revert to the default Windows 11 icons, which means the respective modified system files were not replaced. Finally, Open Shell including Classic Explorer Bar in File Explorer stills works OK, so the relevant Registry modification still works. I will post again if I see anything off.

Compatibility Report: Today I received a notice that there is a new version of Open Shell, 4.4.200. Before I install it, I checked Explorer Patcher, it had no updates. So I installed it but then File Explorer was crashing and could not load. No problem, I have seen it before, all I have to do is reinstall Explorer Patcher. I terminated the explorer.exe process from Task Manager, then I switched to Microsoft Edge and downloaded and reinstalled Explorer Patcher. For some reason, this didn't seem to work, so I browsed into Explorer Patcher installation folder to find a way to uninstall it and install it again. The only executable file I found was ep_setup.exe so I tried that. This worked, but probably installed an older version. After installing this older version of Explorer Patcher, I saw a notification that the symbols for Windows build 8875 were upgraded. I then saw a notification that there was a newer version of Explorer Patcher. I upgraded to the newer version and now everything is back to normal. I have Open Shell 4.4.200 and Explorer Patcher 26100.8457.70.3 Only drawback, I have to customize the network icons again because the respective file was replaced. I just checked and I can confirm that the annoying bug with the taskbar changing color every time I clicked on the search icon is finally fixed! It never changes the color again, it is always my custom color I set on Open Shell. Ουδέν κακόν αμιγές καλού (No bad is entirely separate from good), as Ancient Greek said.

PS: I recently installed latest standard release of Open Shell, version 4.4.198 in my father's computer. I confirm that the annoying bug with the taskbar changing color was NOT fixed it this standard version. I then downloaded the latest pre-release version 4.4.200, this did the trick. So version 4.4.200 fixes the bug, everyone that wants to get rid of this annoying bug must either install the pre-release or wait until the standard 4.4.200 release version.

Hi, first post here on elevenforum...

I got to Step 11 of spapakons' solution and it appears I don't have a Key 8 under hkey local machine/system/current control set/control/FeatureManagement/Overrides/

I just purchased a new laptop with Windows 11 and the Open Shell toolbar is one of the last modifications (hopefully) I need to do.

Any idea why I don't have this key in my registry or what further steps I might take? I still don't have the toolbar back.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have seen this weird phenomenon too on a virtual machine when I installed Windows 11. I don't remember if the fix works without the final key. Try it. Otherwise you will have to manually create the missing keys and set the value as appropriate.

Thanks for the quick reply.

So far the fix hasn't worked without the final steps.

So I can create a new key 8 and sub-key 815149711, then create a new 32-bit word parameter, name it 'EnabledState' and set it to 1 and it should work?

To be clear, I haven't done any of the previously mentioned steps such as uninstalling certain updates or using Vive Tool. I just followed the procedure from your Post #92. I've got Open Shell 4.4.198 and ExplorerPatcher installed.

Yes, just create the missing keys and the DWORD EnabledState. Restart for the changes to take effect.

Many, many thanks spapakons! It did indeed work!

Can't say I understand what those keys do, but I can usually follow procedures and your instructions are concise and clear, so even I could manage it. I'm pretty comfortable with registry mods, don't really know much about scripts or Powershell though.

That toolbar is such a useful tool -- I use it all the time and it'd be a shame to lose it. So thanks again for the info and whatever it took to figure it out. Let's hope we can keep it as long as possible.

Compatibility report: My father's laptop running Windows 11 24H2 26100.9168 switched to 25H2 26200.9168 with the 25H2 Enablement Package. Classic Explorer Bar from Open Shell didn't work. Once I did the Registry fix and restarted it worked. So it seems the fix works for all Windows 11 versions so far.

spapakons said:

Compatibility report: My father's laptop running Windows 11 24H2 26100.9168 switched to 25H2 26200.9168 with the 25H2 Enablement Package. Classic Explorer Bar from Open Shell didn't work. Once I did the Registry fix and restarted it worked. So it seems the fix works for all Windows 11 versions so far.

Click to expand...

Nice , but should be safer using the final update..........

I haven't checked, isn't 9168 the latest?

spapakons said:

I haven't checked, isn't 9168 the latest?

Click to expand...

Yes , it is...........

Reminder: Latest stable version 4.4.198 of Open Shell has the bug of changing the custom Taskbar color defined in Open Shell with the default Windows 11 Taskbar color every time you click on the search icon or box. To fix it you must make a small change like toggle search icon to box and back. To permanently fix the bug you must install latest pre-release version 4.4.200

Compatibility report: I just updated my main PC (see 2nd system specs) to build 26200.9475. So far nothing suspicious, haven't discovered any issues. Also the customized system icons didn't revert to the default Windows 11 icons, which means the respective modified system files were not replaced. Finally, Open Shell including Classic Explorer Bar in File Explorer stills works OK, so the relevant Registry modification still works. I will post again if I see anything off. It also works in Windows 11 26H2 build 26300.9457 I tested it on my father's computer, so don't hesitate to switch to 26H2 if you want.

I remind you that latest stable version 4.4.198 has an annoying bug of changing the custom taskbar color back to Windows default taskbar color when clicking on the Search icon/box. To fix that upgrade to the latest pre-release version, currently 4.4.201.

Like many others here, I use Open Shell for the start menu. It has always been very stable.
To get the taskbar to work properly, I use Windhawk.

It is just amazing Microsoft can't work this simple UI stuff out.

Thanks to Open Shell and other customization tools we can make Windows 11 appear exactly the way we want and even get back deprecated features like desktop gadgets and Windows Media Center.

I have Windows 7 start button and start menu. I loaded a Windows 7 skin from older Classic Shell which also works in Open Shell. I have Windows 8.1 system icons. I extracted them from the Windows 8.1 system files and imported them in the respective Windows 11 system files using Customizer God. For some other system files that Customizer God cannot modify, I used Resource Hacker. I also use some desktop gadgets from Vista and 7 with the help of 8gadgetpack version 37.0 The latest versions support only modern 64-bit gadgets and cannot use old 32-bit gadgets. I have Windows Media Center for Windows 8.1 installed using a patched installer that bypasses version check. I have old Windows 7 calculator (the modern app is huge and ugly), old Microsoft Paint, classic Windows games from Windows 7 and more thanks to Winaero utilities. I can customize many aspects of the GUI thanks to Winaero Tweaker. I can even, just for kicks, see the good old Windows Experience Index thanks to Winaero WEI. I have the Windows 10 style of File Explorer and taskbar right-click menu thanks to Explorer Patcher. I have even found a utility to replace the language text (ENG/ΕΛ) with the respective language flag in the notification area!



This "low" hard disk score is because my motherboard has only SATA II ports and my combo PCIe SATA III + USB 3.0 card is PCIe 4.0 connected on my motherboard's PCIe 3.0 port (see 2nd system specs). If my combo card could work at full speed, the score would probably be close to 8 or more. No bad for an unsupported 3rd generation Intel Core-i7 computer. And Microsoft tries to convince us it is obsolete. Yeah right...