Windhawk Mods (Official Topic - Please Post All Here)

FrancoDT · May 29, 2026

Joseph Wolf said:
After the latest Windows 11 update, (KB5089573) Windows 11 Start Menu Styler 1.5.2 Windhawk does not work

Were you trying to use it on the old Start menu? They disabled it for the old start menu cause the old start menu causes the start menu to crash or fail to open. It works great for me on the new menu with the latest Beta and RP builds.

dacrone · May 29, 2026

you can just turn it back on...

NormanF · May 29, 2026

The Styler will not work if you have Explorer Patcher Windows 10 set as default. It only works with Windows 11.

hdmi · May 29, 2026

NormanF said:
The Styler will not work if you have Explorer Patcher Windows 10 set as default. It only works with Windows 11.

Hence the mod is titled Windows 11 Start Menu Styler, not Windows 10 Start Menu Styler.

QuicktellPro · Friday at 5:18 AM

Will the start menu styler conflict with Open Shell?
I like the Open Shell style of my main menu, but despise the look of the newly modified Windows key menu.

Kees · Friday at 5:30 AM

QuicktellPro said:
I like the Open Shell style of my main menu, but despise the look of the newly modified Windows key menu.

In the settings of OpenShell you can change the function of the Windows key, so that it will open the OpenShell menu too.
You can set the shift function of both click Start button and Windows Key to start the Windows menu.
That's how I have it:

QuicktellPro said:
Will the start menu styler conflict with Open Shell?

Some time ago I tested the menu styler: it did not conflict with Open Shell.

But as I am content with the option to have setting like described, I don't need to change the Windows menu at all, I seldom use it.

QuicktellPro · Friday at 5:43 AM

I use both. I think I will err on the side of caution. Thanks for your reply anyway.

hdmi · Saturday at 8:25 AM

QuicktellPro said:
Will the start menu styler conflict with Open Shell?

No, not as far as I can see.

QuicktellPro · Saturday at 11:25 AM

hdmi said:
No, not as far as I can see.

Thanks. Will it get rid of the new styled menu? Ideally, I would like to have a Win 10 style menu.

NormanF · Saturday at 12:57 PM

QuicktellPro said:
Thanks. Will it get rid of the new styled menu? Ideally, I would like to have a Win 10 style menu.

Get Explorer Patcher and drop it to Windows 10. If you want a start menu, you can install OpenShell, and set it to Windows XP or Windows 7 start menu.

dacrone · Saturday at 1:06 PM

Windhawk has a win10 start menu style in its default startmenustyler choices

QuicktellPro · Saturday at 2:27 PM

dacrone said:
Windhawk has a win10 start menu style in its default startmenustyler choices

I have installed it but can't see how to get it to work. How do I find the app and open its settings, please?

Kees · Saturday at 3:15 PM

- Install the Windhawk mod Windows 11 Start Menu Styler
- Click Settings
- Choose Theme Windows 10 (minimal)

Did that for the test and at my system it does function rightaway.
Took it off immediately after that, because in my opinion the Windows 10 menu is much worse than the Eleven one, but in practice I am using the OpenShell Windows 7 menu with some own tweaking (which is possible in Open Shell).

hdmi · 2026-06-14T02:25:35-0400

QuicktellPro said:
Will it get rid of the new styled menu? Ideally, I would like to have a Win 10 style menu.

Amr Satrio (Amrsatrio on Github) is doing what he can to get the Win 10 style menu working again in ExplorerPatcher. It used to be the best option IMO (for those who really want to have a Win 10 style menu anyway) but right now the menu is still mostly broken it seems.

Important: Fixed 10 taskbar and 10 Start menu crashing on 26220.8474 (Beta) and 26300.8493 (Experimental).

Please update EP as soon as possible to ensure future updates run smoothly, otherwise explorer.exe will not run with EP's 10 taskbar and StartMenuExperienceHost.exe will not run when 10 Start menu is selected.

Those builds have removed remnants of the 10 Start menu in StartTileData.dll. Consequently, the 10 Start menu option has been removed on those builds and future builds without the required stuff in the DLL. (bf36cde, 8a5b8ba)

If you want it back, the temporary solution would be to manually swap C:\Windows\System32\StartTileData.dll with a version from 26xxx.8457 (x64; ARM64). But do not expect this to work for long.

We are confident that this is not the end of the road yet for 10 Start menu. Stay tuned for updates.

From: Releases · valinet/ExplorerPatcher

The Import/Export settings feature doesn't include the layout of the pinned start menu items but AFAIK that is also being worked on.

As for the "Windows 11 Start Menu Styler" mod, you can combine it with the "Start Menu Size" mod. Some time ago I toyed with UWPSpy for a little while to figure out some of the UI elements so here's what I finally got:

I am on a 4k TV. The example shown above uses Start menu width: 758 and Start menu height: 640. Here are the start menu styler mod settings (Textual mode) that it uses:

Code:

theme: ''
disableNewStartMenuLayout: ''
styleConstants:
  - ''
controlStyles:
  - target: Border#AcrylicBorder
    styles:
      - Background:=<WindhawkBlur BlurAmount="4" TintColor="#A014302E"/>
  - target: StartDocked.UserTileView
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
  - target: StartMenu.PinnedList
    styles:
      - Height=420
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Grid#TopLevelSuggestionsListHeader
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Grid#NoTopLevelSuggestionsText
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Grid#TopLevelSuggestionsContainer
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Grid#ShowMoreSuggestions
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.TextBlock#DisplayName
    styles:
      - FontSize=10
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.ContentPresenter > Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Grid > Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.TextBlock
    styles:
      - FontSize=10
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.TextBlock#PinnedListHeaderText
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.TextBlock#ShowMorePinnedButtonText
    styles:
      - FontSize=13
      - Foreground:=<SolidColorBrush Color="{ThemeResource SystemAccentColorLight3}" Opacity="1"/>
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.ContentPresenter > Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.TextBlock
    styles:
      - FontSize=13
      - Foreground:=<SolidColorBrush Color="{ThemeResource SystemAccentColorLight3}" Opacity="1"/>
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.TextBlock#AllListHeadingText
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Shapes.Rectangle#VerticalTrackRect
    styles:
      - Fill:=<SolidColorBrush Color="{ThemeResource SystemAccentColorDark2}" Opacity="1"/>
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.FontIcon#Arrow
    styles:
      - Foreground:=<SolidColorBrush Color="{ThemeResource SystemAccentColorLight3}" Opacity="0.5"/>
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Shapes.Rectangle#ThumbVisual
    styles:
      - Fill:=<SolidColorBrush Color="{ThemeResource SystemAccentColorLight3}" Opacity="0.5"/>
  - target: Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Grid#TopLevelSuggestionsRoot
    styles:
      - Visibility=Collapsed
themeResourceVariables:
  - ''
webContentStyles:
  - target: ''
    styles:
      - ''
webContentCustomJs: ''

As you probably can imagine, I was feeling extremely bored when I did that. (It happens to me sometimes.) Futzing around with it to find out some of the possibilities was more fun than looking at the end result.

EDIT:
I just changed the theme in settings (Visual mode) to SideBySide2 and it seamlessly preserved my custom style settings. All I did next was go to the Start Menu Size again to change the width to 1153 and the height to 645. It gave me this:

QuicktellPro · 2026-06-14T06:03:36-0400

Ok, so I now have it running and can confirm it does not conflict with OpenShell. However, I wanted the Windows key to bring up the Win 10 Metro menu, but even using the Win 10 minimal doesn't give me that. It doesn't matter, using the 'no recommendations option combined with the older of the two legacy layouts has vastly improved it anyway.

DarkShadowMD · 2026-06-14T22:45:32-0400

hdmi said:
EDIT:
I just changed the theme in settings (Visual mode) to SideBySide2 and it seamlessly preserved my custom style settings. All I did next was go to the Start Menu Size again to change the width to 1153 and the height to 645. It gave me this:

View attachment 174294

Excuse me sir, I assume that's the "New Start Menu" modded to look like this. My question is: If you scroll the all apps list, the pinned list on the right scrolls along with it? If not, how did you do it? I'm interested because teh default SideBySide2 included is a complete mess and looks terrible since everything scrolls with the all apps list lol

hdmi · 2026-06-15T07:38:53-0400

DarkShadowMD said:
Excuse me sir, I assume that's the "New Start Menu" modded to look like this. My question is: If you scroll the all apps list, the pinned list on the right scrolls along with it? If not, how did you do it? I'm interested because teh default SideBySide2 included is a complete mess and looks terrible since everything scrolls with the all apps list lol

Yes, it's the "New Start Menu" modded with Windhawk using the "Windows 11 Start Menu Styler" mod and the "Start Menu Size" mod. If I scroll the all apps list on the left, the pinned list on the right does not scroll along with it. I just noticed that, while setting the height in the "Start Menu Size" mod to 645 in my second example like how I explained makes the scrollbar of the pinned list disappear when five or fewer rows of pinned icons are present in it, I can still scroll it ever so slightly (by only two pixels or so) with the mousewheel. After I increased the height setting from 645 to 646, the pinned list became non-scrollable (just like I had intended it to be).

In the "Windows 11 Start Menu Styler" mod's settings, you can switch the settings to Textual mode. In the box that appears in there, you can paste the code I posted, then click on Save settings. Then when you switch back to Visual mode, you can set the theme to SydeBySide2 so that's what I did. (Switching to Textual mode again next reveals that it automatically made some changes in the text content of the box.) On a 4k screen with the Scale set to 150% (Windows Settings > System > Display > Scale) the result is what you see in the second screenshot I posted.

In the "Start Menu Size" mod's settings I changed the width from 1153 to 858 so the number of columns in the pinned list went down from 7 to 5 and the number of rows went up from 5 to 7. In the "Windows 11 Start Menu Styler" mod's (Textual mode) settings I replaced Height=420 with Height=580so the pinned list cuts off after the 7th row of icons (as opposed to cuts off after the 5th row). As you can see, the pinned list now has its own separate scrollbar:

dacrone · 2026-06-15T10:41:03-0400

you can set it to grid, remove the grouping labels and then its all icons and scrollable (like your pinned, but all apps. i have a pinned section at the top the iOS Liquid Glass style that i created, but can hide that easily to make it just the all apps in grid view too

NormanF · 2026-06-15T10:46:02-0400

Kees said:
- Install the Windhawk mod Windows 11 Start Menu Styler
- Click Settings
- Choose Theme Windows 10 (minimal)

View attachment 174234

Did that for the test and at my system it does function rightaway.
Took it off immediately after that, because in my opinion the Windows 10 menu is much worse than the Eleven one, but in practice I am using the OpenShell Windows 7 menu with some own tweaking (which is possible in Open Shell).

Yes but you can't then theme Sun Valley, XP or 7. Pick one.

Kees · 2026-06-15T13:47:37-0400

NormanF said:
Yes but you can't then theme Sun Valley, XP or 7.

I don't need to, bacause I use OpenShell for that. Much more possibilties to organize it in the way I like most.

Windhawk Mods (Official Topic - Please Post All Here)

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