Personalization Restore Classic Start Menu in Windows 11

Try3 · Aug 4, 2021

Wisewiz said:
I guess I use "that much stuff." Each of my solid globe icons hides a pop-up of six rows. Some of those have flyouts. It works for me, and I almost never need to access the Start menu, as you said above.
View attachment 325 View attachment 326

Wisewiz,

What are you using that creates those globe icons? I suppose it's a third-party utility.

Denis

Wisewiz · Aug 9, 2021

@Try3

Sorry @ the delay. Haven't been back in a couple of days.

The icons are from the set called Soft-Scraps, by an artist named Mendoza. They're free, and easy to find online.

The toolbar is True Launch Bar, by Yuri Kobets (Tordex is the company), and I've been using it happily for over a decade. As you can see, it easily incorporates browser shortcuts, W10 Mail, This PC, and Google Keep, and the dark blue-green ball is a clipboard manager that comes from Tordex as well. Happy to answer questions if you have any.

Wisewiz · Aug 9, 2021

Oh, and JIC you were asking about the custom icons, I made the Mail and This PC icons by overlaying smaller icons on Mendoza's basic ones, and adding a colored overlay to get the blue-green one. The program I use is (free) Greenfish Icon Editor Pro. It's an amazing tool.

Oh, and the Recycle Bin is inside the TLBar as well, and is there because I used Brink's excellent short tut on how to put the RecBin on the Taskbar. Thanks, Shawn. @Brink

Try3 · Aug 9, 2021

WiseWiz,

Thanks. And I assume you've also used the explorer.exe substitution discussed earlier.

All the best,
Denis

Wisewiz · Aug 10, 2021

Try3 said:
WiseWiz,

Thanks. And I assume you've also used the explorer.exe substitution discussed earlier.

All the best,
Denis

Hi, Denis,

I'm sorry, I don't see anything in this thread about explorer.exe. Where is that discussion?

Dan

Try3 · Aug 10, 2021

Dan,

Sorry. I got threads mixed up. In How To Make Windows 11 Taskbar Uncombined and Unlocked blacxarea & others discussed methods of getting the Taskbar to accept the addition of Taskbar Toolbars again and one of those was substituting a Windows 10 copy of explorer.exe.

Since Windows 11 did not natively allow Taskbar Toolbars, they had to take action to make it [their focus was elsewhere but mine was on this particular topic]. This is my initial question in its post #54.

Did you have to take any action to make Windows 11 allow Taskbar Toolbars or did True Launch Bar just do whatever it had to to make it work? This image from their website shows it being selected as an option in Taskbar Toolbars.

Or has it all changed while I wasn't paying attention?

Denis

Slavic · Aug 10, 2021

Classic look in my Windows 11

1. Restore the classic taskbar: "Undocking" key, which still works in 22000.120

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell\Update\Packages]
"UndockingDisabled"=dword:00000001

2. Restore the classic taskbar icons using the classic Notification Area Icons CP applet:

Code:

shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}

3. Install Open Shell and select desired Start Menu look
(currently it shows Windows 11 Pro as Windows 10 Pro, I hope it will be fixed in the near future)

4. (optional) Use the classic Orb icon orb.png as Start button (attached)

5. (optional) Add the classic Quick Launch to taskbar:

Code:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\

Wisewiz · Aug 10, 2021

@Try3 @Slavic

Hi, Slavic. Welcome. That post information is fascinating. You've obviously done some homework on this attempt to return the GUI to the way it was. I'm not ignoring your post, but I have to return to the conversation I was having with Try3. I hope your post gets some well deserved attention.

Denis,

The mix-up is probably my fault here. What happened is that we started out (in this thread) talking about getting the Classic Start menu back for 11, and that kinda morphed into the question of why anyone cared about Start, and that slid into what the alternatives to Start were, and that got us on the taskbar and taskbar customization, but most of the taskbar discussion has focused on Windows 10 methods of avoiding the use of the Start menu by substituting taskbar operations for Start menu operations. My taskbar utility (True Launch Bar) and my icon discussion have all been about 10, not 11, which is still (at this point) ignoring the need for taskbar toolbars, and so there is that other discussion on forcing 11 to use a 10-style taskbar by subbing the 10 explorer file for the 11 explorer file (and I suspect that won't hold for long, because explorer.exe is surely one of the most protected of the protected files).

TLB hasn't been developed (yet) for Windows 11, but many long-time users (including moi) have corresponded with Yuri Kobets about the possibility. Yuri won't do anything until/unless it's clear that toolbars can, in fact, be a part of "the Windows 11 experience."

Sorry about the muddle.

Dan

Try3 · Aug 10, 2021

Dan,

Thanks for the explanation.

I'm paying attention to any thread about the Taskbar to see if it goes on to mention anything about Windows 11 Taskbar Toolbars. They've been my primary menu system for almost twenty years and I hope that the current Insider phase workarounds continue to work when it's released.

I'm just leeching off the rest of you at the moment.
- I have brought an old computer back to life and hope that I can use the current compatibility-check bypasses to install Windows 11 on it when it is finally released.
- Then I can test out my own applications & scripts as well as play around with key issues such as Taskbar Toolbars.
- My main computers will stay on Windows 10 until I have it all working on the test computer.

The idea of replacing explorer.exe is not as drastic as it might at first appear. It is called up by a particular Registry entry so, rather than try to replace the Win11 explorer.exe itself, you just substitute the path to a copy of the Win10 explorer.exe instead.
- We used to use this method in the nineties to call up different UIs.
- In those days there was no Registry and we had to alter the corresponding entry within AutoExec.bat or SomethingOrOther.ini
- It used to work a treat. MSOffice used to have a toolbar similar to True Launch Bar and it was a very good UI.

I'll carry on watching this thread so I'll make sure to study any posts you make about further True Launch Bar developments.

All the best,
Denis

Wisewiz · Aug 10, 2021

Try3 said:
- I have brought an old computer back to life and hope that I can use the current compatibility-check bypasses to install Windows 11 on it when it is finally released.
- Then I can test out my own applications & scripts as well as play around with key issues such as Taskbar Toolbars.
- My main computers will stay on Windows 10 until I have it all working on the test computer.

I'll carry on watching this thread so I'll make sure to study any posts you make about further True Launch Bar developments.

Please see my latest post on TenForums about reviving an old computer. I've really enjoyed the process, and learned a great deal from it.
Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware - Windows 10 Help Forums

I'll try to keep us up to date on the TLB question as developments emerge.

Dan

mngerhold · Aug 25, 2021

Try3 said:
I'm paying attention to any thread about the Taskbar to see if it goes on to mention anything about Windows 11 Taskbar Toolbars. They've been my primary menu system for almost twenty years and I hope that the current Insider phase workarounds continue to work when it's released.

Denis: I came here after reading a comment elsewhere that Taskbar toolbars were no longer possinble in W11 - I was surprised at that, and hoped to find that the comment was wrong - oh well. I cannot imagine why MS would take them away - but then, they have removed so many other 'good things' in their attempts to please an unkown (to me) audience. It looks like I will be using the whole of the W10 life-cycle, whatever that may turn out to be.

Still, perhaps before then they will introduce a workable start menu?

Try3 · Aug 25, 2021

mngerhold said:
Denis: I came here after reading a comment elsewhere that Taskbar toolbars were no longer possinble in W11 - I was surprised at that, and hoped to find that the comment was wrong - oh well. I cannot imagine why MS would take them away - but then, they have removed so many other 'good things' in their attempts to please an unkown (to me) audience. It looks like I will be using the whole of the W10 life-cycle, whatever that may turn out to be.

Still, perhaps before then they will introduce a workable start menu?

Martin,

It's no so much that MS are 'taking Taskbar toolbars away'.
It's more that they are merely not including them in the functional requirements they set their programmers.
The re-programmed Windows 11 Taskbar does not seem to have any holes in it that can be abused for our Taskbar toolbar needs.

This thread is one of those I keep an eye on for Taskbar toolbar comments / workarounds. The main one is
How To Make Windows 11 Taskbar Uncombined and Unlocked - ElevenForum
and, like this thread, it also contains a host of other topics of interest to its contributors.
- In that main one, blacxarea & Edwin have discussed at least one workaround that allowed Taskbar Toolbars in Windows 11 [by running Windows 10's explorer.exe instead of the Windows 11 version - this required just a single, simple Registry change].
- Nobody knows if these workarounds will function in the release version of Windows 11 [just as nobody knows if workarounds will continue to allow below-spec computers to run Windows 11 at all].

I've resurrected a 2010 computer [Dell Inspiron 1545] that I will use as a testbed for the release version of Windows 11.
- The first experiments will aim to get Windows 11 running on it.
- Taskbar toolbars will then be my main focus.
- If Taskbar toolbars cannot be made to work then I'll look into alternatives, third-party utilities that provide the same easy method of establishing & maintaining a menu system.
- I will also use it to test my current scripts [batch, vbs, PS, VBA]
- The resurrected computer still has all my existing applications on it so I'll also be able to check those as well. I have no particular reason to doubt that any of them will run correctly.

All the best,
Denis

Corona · Aug 25, 2021

Eventually Win11 will become one big Fischer-Price app.

mngerhold · Aug 25, 2021

Try3 said:
It's no so much that MS are 'taking Taskbar toolbars away'. It's more that they are merely not including them in the functional requirements they set their programmers. The re-programmed Windows 11 Taskbar does not seem to have any holes in it that can be abused for our Taskbar toolbar needs.

An interesting way of putting it! I'm not sure if you are being ironic, or actually see it that way. They are certainly removing a (very good) feature in my view. I never saw the toolbars as an abuse of what Windows provides - although I can see that they maybe didn't expect people to use them as 'a better start menu than that provided by the OS'. Quite why they crippled the start menu in the way they have mystifies me. I wonder if they really think a user like yourself can remember the correct sequence of letters to find an item in your amazingly comprehensive list?

It suggests a different way of seeing the world - drop hierarchical menus and fill the screen with loads of buttons (eg Office ribbon). My mind doesn't work well that way. Oh well.

BunnyJ · Aug 25, 2021

Corona said:
Eventually Win11 will become one big Fischer-Price app.

Fisher price app? Well.., I wonder if that’s just hyperbole. To me most users simply want to use their PC’s to run apps and get work done. I don’t see them wanting to make adjustments so Windows looks beautiful. To them it’s a tool and they use it to get work done.

Like me,, they just like to be productive and use Windows to accomplish that. Looks are only semi important at best. While I like the new look of Win 11 it’s not that key to my usage of it,.

Try3 · Aug 25, 2021

mngerhold said:
An interesting way of putting it! I'm not sure if you are being ironic, or actually see it that way.

Martin,

No, I was not being ironic at all. The battles are fought whilst requirements are being defined and if the programmers have not been instructed to allow for specific features then they won't include them.
- The Windows 7 Taskbar included a requirement for "Accessing commonly used programs within a single click" from which the requirement for Taskbar toolbars was derived.
- The Windows 10 Taskbar appeared to be a simple copy of the Windows 7 one.
- The Windows 11 Taskbar appears to be a completely new development.
- And now they have written early versions, it would cost a lot more to retrospectively add a feature so I am not holding out any hope that they are going to be re-included in the release version.
- Given that then our only choice will be to use workarounds i.e. to abuse the design.

I also dislike the new, flat menu schemes.
- I think the designers must assume that we are primarily driven by choices of application because the new, flat menu scheme would seem to make sense in such a case.
- I cannot see how even MS's primary customers [companies with a corporate IT infrastructure] would favour such an approach except that they often constrain their users to act within in-house application suites that, in effect, provide enhanced menu structures.
- I think people are more often driven by the job in hand. When, for example, I'm working on Radio recordings I want ready access to a particular set of folders, a particular set of applications & a particular set of my own small tools [batch, vbs, PS, VBA]. A Taskbar toolbar allows me to group their shortcuts all together in one place whereas their new, flat menu scheme forces me to jump around all over the place.

You mention the "Office Ribbon". It was actually a predecessor of that, the "Office toolbar", that some of us used as a substitute UI in the nineties. It was like a smaller, neater version of StarDock and did what I now use Taskbar toolbars to do. We just changed a single entry in autoexec.bat or whatever that main .ini file was called [config.ini?]. So if changing a Registry entry in Windows 11 [as worked out by blacxarea & Edwin] achieves the same end I fully expect to use it.

All the best,
Denis

BunnyJ · Aug 25, 2021

Try3 said:
Martin,

No, I was not being ironic at all. The battles are fought whilst requirements are being defined and if the programmers have not been instructed to allow for specific features then they won't include them.
- The Windows 7 Taskbar included a requirement for "Accessing commonly used programs within a single click" from which the requirement for Taskbar toolbars was derived.
- The Windows 10 Taskbar appeared to be a simple copy of the Windows 7 one.
- The Windows 11 Taskbar appears to be a completely new development.
- And now they have written early versions, it would cost a lot more to retrospectively add a feature so I am not holding out any hope that they are going to be re-included in the release version.
- Given that then our only choice will be to use workarounds i.e. to abuse the design.

I also dislike the new, flat menu schemes.
- I think the designers must assume that we are primarily driven by choices of application because the new, flat menu scheme would seem to make sense in such a case.
- I cannot see how even MS's primary customers [companies with a corporate IT infrastructure] would favour such an approach except that they often constrain their users to act within in-house application suites that, in effect, provide enhanced menu structures.
- I think people are more often driven by the job in hand. When, for example, I'm working on Radio recordings I want ready access to a particular set of folders, a particular set of applications & a particular set of my own small tools [batch, vbs, PS, VBA]. A Taskbar toolbar allows me to group their shortcuts all together in one place whereas their new, flat menu scheme forces me to jump around all over the place.

You mention the "Office Ribbon". It was actually a predecessor of that, the "Office toolbar", that some of us used as a substitute UI in the nineties. It was like a smaller, neater version of StarDock and did what I now use Taskbar toolbars to do. We just changed a single entry in autoexec.bat or whatever that main .ini file was called [config.ini?]. So if changing a Registry entry in Windows 11 [as worked out by blacxarea & Edwin] achieves the same end I fully expect to use it.

All the best,
Denis

My suggestion.. keep using 10,, it's going to be around for about 4 more years

Try3 · Aug 25, 2021

BunnyJ said:
My suggestion.. keep using 10,, it's going to be around for about 4 more years

Bunny,

Yes, I can but I'm also trying to prepare for the day [in 2025] when I will have no choice.

Denis

BunnyJ · Aug 25, 2021

Try3 said:
Bunny,

Yes, I can but I'm also trying to prepare for the day [in 2025] when I will have no choice.

Denis

You have 4+ years.. I think you can adjust.

vannn · Aug 25, 2021

someone is working on it....

Code:

https://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-and-a-first-look-at-windows-11#comments

Personalization Restore Classic Start Menu in Windows 11

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