Solved How To Make Windows 11 Taskbar Uncombined and Unlocked

blacxarea · Jul 13, 2021

Ghot said:
I want my Start Menu back. My favorite Start Menu was XP's, because it showed ALL the programs at one time,
In one column. In Win 7 you had to scroll. Yuck. Not an improvement in my mind.

It shouldn't be that hard. Just a list of programs... Don't need letter categories, grouping, double spacing, etc.
Just a list of programs, with no scrolling required.

A case of Borg's Octopus Soup for the first person to come up with a solution.

OpenShell might works. I'm using StartIsBack++ because scroll is just fine for me.
OpenShell 4.4.160

Edwin · Jul 13, 2021

Hey, look ma..., seconds on the Taskbar Clock!!!

blacxarea · Jul 13, 2021

Edwin said:
I was actually surprised that the ShowClassicStart reg hack didn't work now!

How if go to \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\StartMode
and create DWORD ActualStartMode and set to 0?

Haven't try by myself since I'm using StartIsBack..

blacxarea · Jul 13, 2021

Edwin said:
Hey, look ma..., seconds on the Taskbar Clock!!!

View attachment 2874

next day you'll change that AM/PM to Edwin/Edwin..

Edwin · Jul 13, 2021

blacxarea said:
next day you'll change that AM/PM to Edwin/Edwin..

No, but I could do a light and dark smiley! :wink:

davidvkimball · Jul 13, 2021

blacxarea said:
I've been tinkering Windows 11 since it's the very first leaked ISO, and like many others, I noticed the uncustomizable Taskbar. So I tried my own experiments to get some good things back to this newest Windows. I installed the latest build (22000.65) on my daily PC, that is actually "can't run Windows 11," because it's an old machine with AMD Phenom II X2 555 Processor. But I managed to do a clean install and most of the things run smoothly.

Now, for the taskbar, even if you changed "TaskbarGlomLevel" and "MMTaskbarGlomLevel" to 2, and changed "TaskbarSizeMove" to 1 in registry, the opened windows will always combine in Taskbar and the Taskbar itself can not be moved anywhere.

Now see this screenshot:
View attachment 2840

As we can see, I'm running Windows 11 Build 22000.65 with ungrouped Taskbar. This is my PC details:
View attachment 2841

How to do that? Here comes the most important thing:
- Copy "explorer.exe" from the previous build. Here I'm using one from Windows 10 Build 19041.964, can be seen here:
View attachment 2842

- Now restart the PC to DOS (Command Prompt)
- Get to the directory C:\Windows, and rename the original "explorer.exe" to something else for backup. I did something like this:
-- C:\Windows ren explorer.exe exploder.exe
- Copy the new "explorer.exe" to that directory. Here is what I did:
-- C:\Windows copy D:\Files\explorer.exe (D:\Files is where you put the copied "explorer.exe" from Windows 10)
- Restart the computer, and you now have the customizable Taskbar with uncombined icons and show text, also it's movable and sizable.

Finished? Not yet. I don't know will this one happens to others or not, but in my case, I don't have clock, network icon, and volume icon after replacing explorer.exe. To bring them back, you have to do this:
- Press Win + R (Run Command), and run this: shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
View attachment 2843

It will bring the old systray icons dialog and you can choose which icon to show up at the bottom-right corner. Choose "Turn system icons on or off" to bring back volume, network, and clock icons.
View attachment 2844

Here is the final look of my desktop now:
View attachment 2845

WARNING: Don't delete the original "explorer.exe" in case something bad might happens. I tested this method to run on my PC for 24H and got no problem. Hopefully there will never be any problem.

Remember, keep this one for backup:
View attachment 2846

Very nice. Any way to add light colored text on the taskbar so it's readable in dark mode?

Ghot · Jul 13, 2021

Edwin said:
I was actually surprised that the ShowClassicStart reg hack didn't work now!

This is the Start menu I want..... I decided I don't need icons. I can read.

Edwin · Jul 13, 2021

Ghot said:
This is the Start menu I want.....

That's pretty much what I have...
('cept I can't hide or customize the UWP apps!)

blacxarea · Jul 13, 2021

davidvkimball said:
Very nice. Any way to add light colored text on the taskbar so it's readable in dark mode?

Damn, I never check this one since I always use light colors for the accents.

Ghot · Jul 13, 2021

Edwin said:
No, but I could do a light and dark smiley!

View attachment 2875

Ok... how did you get the seconds to show on the System Clock?

I managed to get the seconds on the lock screen clock, but not the System Clock.

blacxarea · Jul 13, 2021

blacxarea said:
Damn, I never check this one since I always use light colors for the accents.

Tried to find the registry file with no luck, then changed the the "TaskbarSmallIcons" to 0, then restart the explorer, and the colors automatically change.

blacxarea · Jul 13, 2021

Ghot said:
Ok... how did you get the seconds to show on the System Clock?

I managed to get the seconds on the lock screen clock, but not the System Clock.

Go to regedit:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Find or create DWORD ShowSecondsInSystemClock, set to 1

If that doesn't work, go to Control Panel, select Region, select Format.
Set the Long Time to h:mm:ss

Ghot · Jul 13, 2021

blacxarea said:
Go to regedit:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Find or create DWORD ShowSecondsInSystemClock, set to 1

If that doesn't work, go to Control Panel, select Region, select Format.
Set the Long Time to h:mm:ss

!st doesn't work since 22000.65, and Long Time is already set to h:mm:ss

I even managed to get Short time, set to h:mm:ss also... that's how I got seconds on the Lock Screen clock.

Still no seconds on the Taskbar clock

Don't break a sweat... I just figured @Edwin would spill the beans.

blacxarea · Jul 13, 2021

Ghot said:
!st doesn't work since 22000.65, and Long Time is already set to h:mm:ss

I even managed to get Short time, set to h:mm:ss also... that's how I got seconds on the Lock Screen clock.

Still no seconds on the Taskbar clock

Don't break a sweat... I just figured @Edwin would spill the beans.

He will.
Here is mine so far:

blackroseMD1 · Jul 13, 2021

blacxarea said:
Here is my desktop now, after I installed StartIsBack++ version 2.9.15, the original Start Menu covered by the StartIsBack and moved to the left

A little off topic, but those white icons you're using in the taskbar are sweet. Any way you could point me to where I could find them?

bobcollard · Jul 13, 2021

I still like this effect with the task bar at top. It hides when not needed and I used TranslucentTB to get the background to stand out.

vannn · Jul 14, 2021

Edwin · Jul 14, 2021

Ghot said:
Ok... how did you get the seconds to show on the System Clock?

I managed to get the seconds on the lock screen clock, but not the System Clock.

Happened automatically when I switched explorer.exe's!

Edwin · Jul 14, 2021

blackroseMD1 said:
A little off topic, but those white icons you're using in the taskbar are sweet. Any way you could point me to where I could find them?

I think they are Token by brsev