start menu classic (left side, much narrower and cleaner)

after registering I came straight to customization, can't get use to a ton of stuff under new windows 11 hope im not the only one.

anyone know how to get start menu to be similar to windows 8, 10 etc? (leaning towards 8 and 7)

or any 3rd party tool allowing this, thanks

There are several. I use Start11 which does have the option to show the start menu like Windows 7. I believe Startallback does as well. A lot of people here use explorerpatcher, but from what I read it gives the option of Windows 10 or 11 style start menu.

@m18xr2

You may find some of these helpful as well...




Almost forgot. Winaero Tweaker, has a gazillion settings...

And on the right side, for each item on the left... there is a link to tell you how to do it manually, if so desired.

so looks like theres still no method to reduce the buttons (minimize, close) on the top right of windows (explorer, apps, chrome, edge etc etc)? given that windows 11 has been out for awhile now I had assume there would be fixes but..

m18xr2 said:

so looks like theres still no method to reduce the buttons (minimize, close) on the top right of windows (explorer, apps, chrome, edge etc etc)? given that windows 11 has been out for awhile now I had assume there would be fixes but..

Click to expand...

Not exactly sure what you mean by this. Do you mean reduce the size of the buttons? Give us a little more detail please.

m18xr2 said:

so looks like theres still no method to reduce the buttons (minimize, close) on the top right of windows (explorer, apps, chrome, edge etc etc)? given that windows 11 has been out for awhile now I had assume there would be fixes but..

Click to expand...

Use winaero tweaker and alter the titlebar font and dimensions/padding.

m18xr2 said:

how to get start menu to be similar to windows 8,

Click to expand...

Windows 8 does not have a start menu. I use Open-Shell, ExplorerPatcher, and SystemTrayMenu. Using all 3 of them at once.

Hi,

Is there a way to get the 'Classic Start Menu' in Windows 11 AFTER Build 22000.65?

I'm running Build 22631 and the registry hack HK_Current_User new key DWORD Start_ShowClassicMode = 1 doesn't work (this has ben shortened for brevity).

Art

Scott said:

Not exactly sure what you mean by this. Do you mean reduce the size of the buttons? Give us a little more detail please.

Click to expand...

see hdmi's post and his screenshot show exactly what I meant, the 3 buttons top right of any window. too thick, taking up too much vertical spacing, and wish to reduce space in between them also make the sizes smaller similar to that of windows 7, 8 and 8.1

dacrone said:

Use winaero tweaker and alter the titlebar font and dimensions/padding.

Click to expand...

I played around in the tweaker but can't seem to find this dimension/padding thing, could you screenshot it for me? and do they really work? I tried a bunch of other crap like stardock curtain or window blinds etc and those only work for explorer general UI but not chrome/edge etc.

Advanced Appearance Settings > Windows Borders
Advanced Appearance Settings > Windows Title Bars

m18xr2 said:

I played around in the tweaker but can't seem to find this dimension/padding thing, could you screenshot it for me?

Click to expand...

hdmi said:

View attachment 97694

Click to expand...

thanks for this, this changes the explorer UI but doesn't change many other programs butotn size. ie. chrome, edge, firefox, anydesk and few others.

any idea how to get them to all use/follow window's settings?

m18xr2 said:

thanks for this, this changes the explorer UI but doesn't change many other programs butotn size. ie. chrome, edge, firefox, anydesk and few others.

any idea how to get them to all use/follow window's settings?

Click to expand...

Changing the Border padding to 0 also causes unwanted side effects, like, e.g., it messes up the title bar of the notepad app.

If you try to reduce the Scale (in Windows Settings | System | Display), then all the other UI elements also get reduced, and, if you try to use bigger fonts to make text readable again next, then in various many places the text gets cut off, and it messes up the alignment of various UI elements, also in various (many) places. If you try to use the Custom Scaling setting, these problems typically become even much worse. Some desktop apps and some Microsoft Store apps give you the option to hide or customize their title bar, but the vast majority do not. (Or if they let you customize it, then doing so doesn't reduce its height.)

hdmi said:

Changing the Border padding to 0 also causes unwanted side effects, like, e.g., it messes up the title bar of the notepad app.

If you try to reduce the Scale (in Windows Settings | System | Display), then all the other UI elements also get reduced, and, if you try to use bigger fonts to make text readable again next, then in various many places the text gets cut off, and it messes up the alignment of various UI elements, also in various (many) places. If you try to use the Custom Scaling setting, these problems typically become even much worse. Some desktop apps and some Microsoft Store apps give you the option to hide or customize their title bar, but the vast majority do not. (Or if they let you customize it, then doing so doesn't reduce its height.)

Click to expand...

omg thats horrible... why they gotta all go for tablet/phone style. window is basically for PC/laptops

I'm running the classic Windows XP double pane menu on Open Shell.

Everything is logical and well-laid out. Before Microsoft axed it.

m18xr2 said:

omg thats horrible...

Click to expand...

It is. Still, I could give you a good long list of Windows UI related issues that I find to be even much worse than this.

m18xr2 said:

why they gotta all go for tablet/phone style. window is basically for PC/laptops

Click to expand...

Basically it all began when they released Windows 8, with what they used to call Metro UI. It's what can be remembered as the Steve Ballmer era and the old, but still new, philosophy of "Just adapt to the trivial observation that it is worse than horrible or go home". The good news is that there still exist ample free tweaks that can effectively be used to fix or workaround the various new shortcomings so, the question of why they had decided to ruin and/or amputate all those features that were, and in many cases still are, sometimes (sometimes often) useful mostly becomes (or might look like it has become...) somewhat irrelevant as a result. The bad news (sort of) is that they [the people who make these design decisions at Microsoft] appear to have found a way to constantly break a lot of the aforementioned free tweaks.

In a sense, I guess it's fair to say that their logic is kind of sadistic like dark humor. Because, what they factually are doing is, they're giving you Windows on a silver platter, and then one minute later, they're pulling the silverwear back from underneath your nose so if you aren't careful enough, scaldingly hot coffee is splashing all over your pants. I took professional training to, after having worked as a systems engineer who developed data-centric desktop apps on Windows 2000 Pro with Visual Studio for a short while, become a Java Enterprise software developer 18 years ago (i.e. a few years before Oracle Corporation aquired Sun Microsystems). I work in that particular part of the IT world where telling people to just adapt to what's worse than horrible is among the absolute fastest bestest possible ways to getting yourself fired.

Read the news (if you haven't done that already). Take a look at how well Steve Ballmer is doing in 2024. Are we feeling nostalgic re Live Tiles yet? How about bringing back the beautiful Charms? I think the thing that I am missing the most right now is the Files app from Windows Phone 8.1 actually. For those who don't know what that one was about... it's an UWP app that they designed to let you access your files on your Windows Phone device, but that recognized only just a small handful of file types so, it was impressively very close to uselessness. I vote for more impressiveness like this. The impressiveness is what helps me to remember the stuff.

perhaps people should actually sit down and decide what they actually use their computers for and what they do on them for most of the day.

I find running 95% of the stuff I use Windows for just using desktop icons is fine (I have almost zero store apps etc). If I need more options from within a particular application e.g say photoshop which has loads of selections then the menu / title bar within the application will usually offer the selection convieniently.

I can certainly understand the reasons why people might want to tweak their systems for performance etc, find hidden / undocumented features, run bleeding edge new hardware, run legacy or older versions of apps that don't work on later versions of windows (my preferred advice in that scenario would be to run a VM -- HYPER-V is super efficient these days) or alter the basic background but messing around with menus and the start button etc just to me seems pointless in the extreme.


If you want to tinker around with an OS to that extent then choose an OS that allows you to do it.
Note that's my view - others will probably disagree here but there we are.

Cheers
jimbo

I don't have to actually sit down to be able to decide what I use my computers for or what I do on them for most of the day. As a matter of fact, too much sitting is bad for health. Taking more frequent breaks is only one example of how that is possible to avoid, and taking more frequent and/or longer breaks also helps to gain better focus and attention so it also helps to reduce stress symptoms like eyestrain and bodily fatigue, headaches, neck/shoulder/back problems, etc.. What most people don't seem to know is that, after taking a break, the time that it takes for the average person to regain full focus of attention on workflow very often tends to be substantially longer than the time that it takes before the negative health effects that result from remaining in a seated position begin to kick in again.

That's why I usually lie down in front of my big TV, that I use as my main computer monitor with my K800 wireless keyboard on my lap, whereas some others swear by standing at a computer desk table that has a (motorized) adjustable height. Using a big TV also helps to reduce eyestrain for me due to having a much longer distance between my eyes and the TV, and, although standing upright at a computer table doesn't exclude the option to use a bigger computer monitor/TV (as you don't necessarily have to put the bigger display device on this same table of course; you could always decide to put it at a farther distance on a separate table/wallmount), I still prefer to lie down, simply because it reduces more of my own stress symptoms. Opinions don't even come into play. Instead, it's just an easy determination like cause and effect. Similarly, productivity also depends heavily on health and on people's ability to focus on workflow for longer, while not having to waste valuable energy and time with a stubborn UI. That plus the fact that about 20% of the population are HSPs.

Finally, I'll be the judge of what's the number of items I need/want to see in my Start menu and of how I want to keep them accessible and organized. I use Windows 11 because it allows me to use tweaks to accomplish exactly that, on top of lets me achieve all my workflow all day and all of the night.

hdmi said:

I don't have to actually sit down to be able to decide what I use my computers for or what I do on them for most of the day. As a matter of fact, too much sitting is bad for health. Taking more frequent breaks is only one example of how that is possible to avoid, and taking more frequent and/or longer breaks also helps to gain better focus and attention so it also helps to reduce stress symptoms like eyestrain and bodily fatigue, headaches, neck/shoulder/back problems, etc.. What most people don't seem to know is that, after taking a break, the time that it takes for the average person to regain full focus of attention on workflow very often tends to be substantially longer than the time that it takes before the negative health effects that result from remaining in a seated position begin to kick in again.

That's why I usually lie down in front of my big TV, that I use as my main computer monitor with my K800 wireless keyboard on my lap, whereas some others swear by standing at a computer desk table that has a (motorized) adjustable height. Using a big TV also helps to reduce eyestrain for me due having a much longer distance between my eyes and the TV, and, although standing upright at a computer table doesn't exclude the option to use a bigger computer monitor/TV (as you don't necessarily have to put the bigger display device on this same table of course; you could always decide to put it at a farther distance on a separate table/wallmount), I still prefer to lie down, simply because it reduces more of my own stress symptoms. Opinions don't even come into play. Instead, it's just an easy determination like cause and effect. Similarly, productivity also depends heavily on health and on people's ability to focus on workflow for longer, while not having to waste valuable energy and time with a stubborn UI. That plus the fact that about 20% of the population are HSPs.

Finally, I'll be the judge of what's the number of items I need/want to see in my Start menu and of how I want to keep them accessible and organized. I use Windows 11 because it allows me to use tweaks to accomplish exactly that, on top of lets me achieve all my workflow all day and all of the night.

Click to expand...

Hi there
I'm sure most are aware of the values of taking regular breaks and using computers in the most ergonomical way. My point was that if people want to spend time messing around with things like menus etc then for me that's a total waste of time. I did also mention in the post that if that's what people want to do -- it's their privilege -- what you do on your own machines is of course your own business.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

My point was that if people want to spend time messing around with things like menus etc then for me that's a total waste of time.

Click to expand...

Tell that to the people who make these particular design decisions at Microsoft. They're the ones who keep messing around with the UI. I am not the only one who is inclined to believe that they all probably use a Mac. That in fact is why so many of us are using various customization tweaks to adjust things like menus etc., and it also helps to immediately explain why your opinion is irrelevant to this topic. It adds no value of any kind, like coming to a Windows forum to post that, to you, using Windows is a total waste of time.