Dislike Win 11 appearance? Ways to "fix it"

If, like me, you dislike (to say the least) some of the decisions MS tries to foist on us over how the Windows UI looks, Anthony at Linus Tech Tips takes a look at a variety of ways, from Start11 and StartAllBack to registry hacks, to either put it back how it was or, maybe better yet, how YOU want it.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZPRrYLGrhI

It's called "Hate Windows 11? Try this."

It was obvious this would happen, but not so clear how long it would take. But it makes it all the more puzzling that MS could (again) be so bone-headed as to try t force users to do things the (new) way they decide they want.

I've said it before (ad nauseum, and since win 8 beta, or before) .... MS, give USERS the choice. We'll end up there anyway, and you'd avoid the PR backlash.

The irony is Microsoft made the shell fully customisable from day one in NT, companies could implement their own GUI, as it was expected back then. Yet beyond NT 5 no one has taken the opportunity to make an alternate one. Still strikes me today that we don't have 101 different shells out there while we still have the ability to customise it, I can see this avenue being closed off completely one day without it really seeing the light of day in the modern era.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

If, like me, you dislike (to say the least) some of the decisions MS tries to foist on us over how the Windows UI looks, Anthony at Linus Tech Tips takes a look at a variety of ways, from Start11 and StartAllBack to registry hacks, to either put it back how it was or, maybe better yet, how YOU want it.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZPRrYLGrhI

It's called "Hate Windows 11? Try this."

It was obvious this would happen, but not so clear how long it would take. But it makes it all the more puzzling that MS could (again) be so bone-headed as to try t force users to do things the (new) way they decide they want.

I've said it before (ad nauseum, and since win 8 beta, or before) .... MS, give USERS the choice. We'll end up there anyway, and you'd avoid the PR backlash.

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I've said it here several times before but you can blame Apple for this. Apple went with an OS that has zero customisation. If you don't like the changes we're making - lump it. The consequence of this is less things to mess up and consumers who don't have a clue like the fact it 'just works' (I hate that phrase!). This is just what is happening with consumer OSs currently. You can see the same with Android. It used to be so configurable/flexible - Its just getting more and more fixed (how many people have a custom launcher let alone a custom ROM nowadays). Unfortunately if you want real options Linux is about your only choice. PC's aren't the super flexible tools they used to be and its just a reflection on the average user.

Maybe its an age thing, the younger generation don't care about customisation or changing how things look (for the most part). They just want something that works.

Gone are the days of just 1 PC in the home for instance and making it your own. There was a study, I think shown on BBC news (maybe wrong). Showing that the younger generation, kids and teens are happy to watch TV with the subtitles on as they are doing things on multiple devices. Something I have seen in my own house.

Whereas I used to love customising windows etc, these days I couldn't care less as long as it works. Though these days I am using a MAC but it's doing everything I want.

I think the attitude towards tech in general is going down this route, we're, mostly of the age where we still remember the dawn of the internet, dialup, BBS's, RAM costing hundreds for 8Mb, Amiga's, Turbo buttons on PC's, actual 5.25" Floppy disks, 3.5" Stiffies and all that other stuff...

Remember when the internet hit, and you could literally watch an image come in line by line, and Shockwave websites were all the rage with music playing and all that jazz, we soon got bored of it and thing naturally toned down and became the quieter more boring things we have now, I think that's where OSes are now, when they were new everyone wanted to customise things and have all the bells and whistles, now, they just don't care in the same way...

Well said Trig, something I was grappling to say myself :)

@cheesemp .... I don't disagree about Apple, but then that always has been a thing about Apple. It has advantages and disavantages, but Apple at least are consistent .... they do things their way, like it or not. Don't like it? Don't buy Apple.

@Jonj1611, Trig etc .... I take the point, and about the younger folk and the way things are done changing.

But I wat to draw a distinction. It's not that I'm wanting to customise Windows. Not at all. It's that I resent beta-testing MS's latest wheeze for a new UI design, new positions to put things, new menu layouts, etc, every time they decide to try something else. I mean, Win7 .... new UI. Aero. square corners, or rounder corners, start menu, no start menu, then sort-of start menu. Live tiles, then dropping live tiles. and as for finding where they've put the option to do this or that, what goes in control panel and how it's laid out. Etc, ad nauseum.

I entirely agree with the "I just want to get on with things" attitude, I juat want it to work. I don't want to get used to doing things a different way every five minutes.

Which is why all it needs is for MS to provide, either on installation or in an easy to find button/option saying "New UI or Classic UI". If they want to try new things,fine. Just give those of us that don't want to beta their latest wheeze the ability to opt out.

Let me paint you a picture. My wife is not at all tech-oriented. She has to learn where things are, from the "Print" or "Save" option down, by rote. That means writing it down, then doing it repetitively. And every damn time MS change things around, it causes her nightmare problems because nothing is where it should be. She loathes computers as a result. All she wants to do is turn it on, do her work, and turn it off ..... not play hunt the command button or menu option.

So it's not that I want to customise Windows. It's that I want her to be able do things without it driving her up the wall every time some young UI designer thinks he/she has re-invented the UI wheel. I want MS to give us the option to un-customise Windows. The fact that there is a thriving market for all these utilities to un-fudge MS's latest fudging efforts suggests neither she nor I are alone.

But that's not what this thread is for. It's not a should/shouldn't they thread. It's a "they did, and here's some help for those that don't like it thread.

Couldn't agree more.
In a work environment it means staff have to be retrained for the most basic of tasks.
You can no longer call it the Start button or Start Menu or find the same things on right clicking. Even more annoying is sub versions of the same operating system have things in different places, worded differently. Consistency is an unheard term at Microsoft.

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Originally Posted by AGTDenton

Couldn't agree more.
In a work environment it means staff have to be restrained for the most basic of tasks.
You can no longer call it the Start button or Start Menu or find the same things on right clicking. Even more annoying is sub versions of the same operating system have things in different places, worded differently. Consistency is an unheard term at Microsoft.

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Quite.

One of the things that, over the years,I found to be both pretty good and disastrously bad, was (I don't remember exactly what they called it) .... adaptive menus. The things that changed and moved around depending on what you'd done recently. I mean, in theory, putting the things you use regularly towards the top of menus .... good idea, right? Not if you're like my wife, because the option might have been third down on 'this' menu yesyerday or last week, but it isn't today. It drove her nuts. Guess who had to suss out how to disable it.

I think MS underestimates just how many users, in modern offices, use a PC (usually a Win PC) as a tool. What they're really running is accounting software, WP, stock control systems, that kind of stuff. It's like a mechanic having to buy a new set of sockets and spanners every two or three years because car manufacturers kept coming up with new sizes and shapes for nuts and bolts. I mean, having Whitworth, Imperial and metric in my tool kits was enough of a pain. Usersjust want to do heir work and most don't give a left0handed flying fig where the print menu is as long as the damn thing stays put, and as for rounded corners .... :(

Okay, I'll concede the corner-shape thing is me being a smidge picky, and it makes no real difference to users (but, IMHO, rounded look a bit nicer), but the point remains .... let users select the Classic style, if they want. If 3rd party utility house can do it, MS sure could.

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Originally Posted by [GSV]Trig

I think the attitude towards tech in general is going down this route, we're, mostly of the age where we still remember the dawn of the internet, dialup, BBS's, RAM costing hundreds for 8Mb, Amiga's, Turbo buttons on PC's, actual 5.25" Floppy disks, 3.5" Stiffies and all that other stuff...

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How rude! True, but it's not nice to be reminded. That's almost as bad as a friend of mine saying I should change my job before I hit 50 as it becomes harder past that point.

:help:

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Quite.

One of the things that, over the years,I found to be both pretty good and disastrously bad, was (I don't remember exactly what they called it) .... adaptive menus. The things that changed and moved around depending on what you'd done recently. I mean, in theory, putting the things you use regularly towards the top of menus .... good idea, right? Not if you're like my wife, because the option might have been third down on 'this' menu yesyerday or last week, but it isn't today. It drove her nuts. Guess who had to suss out how to disable it.

I think MS underestimates just how many users, in modern offices, use a PC (usually a Win PC) as a tool. What they're really running is accounting software, WP, stock control systems, that kind of stuff. It's like a mechanic having to buy a new set of sockets and spanners every two or three years because car manufacturers kept coming up with new sizes and shapes for nuts and bolts. I mean, having Whitworth, Imperial and metric in my tool kits was enough of a pain. Usersjust want to do heir work and most don't give a left0handed flying fig where the print menu is as long as the damn thing stays put, and as for rounded corners .... :(

Okay, I'll concede the corner-shape thing is me being a smidge picky, and it makes no real difference to users (but, IMHO, rounded look a bit nicer), but the point remains .... let users select the Classic style, if they want. If 3rd party utility house can do it, MS sure could.

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But that would require:
1) More testing
2) More development (You need to test both sets of drawing code)
3) More confusion (Is Windows 11 is classic mode going to behave like Windows 10 or 11 in this circumstance)
4) Increased complexity for 3rd party devs - they now need to test their app twice
5) Admitting your new product isn't the be all and end all (Marketing is an important thing)
6) More chance some user will click a setting and get super confused

As I march ever closer to product management (yuk) I find myself having to consider these things. I remember when our product which is very long running changed look and feel - the amount of complaints we got from end users mangers who had to retrain their staff to click on the blue button shaded not the yellow shaded button was incredible but ultimately the new look caught the buyers eyes in the show floors (not the end users or their managers!). I suspect Microsoft decided if people really want the old look they'll hunt this stuff out but ultimately they'll weather this out because they want the marketable product - not the easily usable one!

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Originally Posted by cheesemp

But that would require:
1) More testing
2) More development (You need to test both sets of drawing code)
3) More confusion (Is Windows 11 is classic mode going to behave like Windows 10 or 11 in this circumstance)
4) Increased complexity for 3rd party devs - they now need to test their app twice
5) Admitting your new product isn't the be all and end all (Marketing is an important thing)
6) More chance some user will click a setting and get super confused

As I march ever closer to product management (yuk) I find myself having to consider these things. I remember when our product which is very long running changed look and feel - the amount of complaints we got from end users mangers who had to retrain their staff to click on the blue button shaded not the yellow shaded button was incredible but ultimately the new look caught the buyers eyes in the show floors (not the end users or their managers!). I suspect Microsoft decided if people really want the old look they'll hunt this stuff out but ultimately they'll weather this out because they want the marketable product - not the easily usable one!

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1) Agreed.
2) Well, they already have the code as they have the existing UI so, not that much.
3) Not really. Default to the nw one but give us a switch, whether on install or later.
4) Again, they sould already have code for existing UI, if 3rd party dev's need it.
5) I'd argue that that is pretty self-evident anyway .... to a blind bat.
6) More confusing that keep changing where things are? Not a chance, IMHO.

But even if true, it demonstrates MS lack of regard for users, which is why it annoys lots of people when they do it. And they could remove ALL that by just not messing around with where things are.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

But even if true, it demonstrates MS lack of regard for users, which is why it annoys lots of people when they do it. And they could remove ALL that by just not messing around with where things are.

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I'll keep this short but this is all about shifting product NOT keeping existing customers happy. What causes someone to replace a perfectly good iphone 12 with an iphone 13 - Its the 'shiny new product' feeling. Microsoft's product management will only be focused on sales and all these decisions will be based on this. (Its not like there are any big features Microsoft can now add to Windows other than a new look and feel.)

Just as an aside, I don't think keeping two completely separate sets of UI is as simple as you imply - When you have hundreds of controls to manage the risk of making changes that breaks something in the other version is very high. Add in the extra costs of testing and this just isn't going to be considered. You're thinking like an end user not a sales man (which is 80% of product management).

Yet, at the same time, one aspect of sales is not annoying existing customers. And if it's so difficult to 'develop' an alternate interface, even when you already have it developed, how come several 3rd party software houses have not only managed to do it, but to then sell it for about $5. Sorry, I just flat-out don't buy it that this is because it's too much effort or cost for MS. No, it's about them wanting to force users into their new way of doing things, even though they keep changing their mind on what that way is.

Look, I'll say it again, this thread isn't about what MS should or shouldn't do with their UI, mainly because, personally, I don't give a damn what they do. They essentially lost me over Win8 and I shifted most of what I do to Linux. I have a Win10 machine basically because an MS Surface Pro 'dropped into my lap' (a friend had one, didn't use it and when I was looking for a lightweight machine offered it to me at a can't say no" price). My other Win10 machine uses a removeable drive cage arrangement, and I have Win7, Win 10, a couple of Linux variants etc all on 2.5" (HD) and 3.5" (SSD) mso I can boot that machine as almost anything, in almost no time. I barely use W10, andeven some of that I can avoid it. There are still, however, a small group of things (software and hardware) for which either Linux versions don't exist, or are legacy hardware for which drivers don't exist. Even then, I'm personally more than content to ignore Win11, and leave that system on Win 10 until eos in 2025, at which point (or before) I will simply put it on my air-gapped network and still ignore Win11. I don't need Win 11, now or in the future. As mentioned above, I just "want it [my PC] to work". It's a tool, to do a job, and it'll do what I need and probably will ever need, just fine.

So, in short, I don't care what MS do with their UI.

The pointof this thread isn't to debate what they should or shouldn't do, it's a pointer to those that want the old UI but on Win11 to some tools and hints on how best to do it.

No amount of arguing about how difficult in is or isn't is relevant. Not to me because I don't use it and am not going to change my mind about MSs over-whelming arrogance in how they treat their users, and not to people that are going to end up using Win11 but still want their old-style Ui because they still want their old-style UI. Good luck convincing my Mrs, for example, that their new UI is in her best interests. ;)

For those happy with MSs latest round of changes, it's still not relevant because they've got that, already.

So the thread is purely a heads-up pointing those that don't like the changes to things they can do about it, not a discussion about whether they should or not, or how hard done-by poor ol' MS are in trying to maintain the stuff they thought was great, last time their wind changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRwdoo9kNTw