Classic-Shell VS ExplorerPatcher

I'm using Win10 Pro, and I have no ads, no problems with unwanted apps, a sane start menu, and I run almost all non-ms software on top so microsoft's incompetence there is a nonissue. I can also replicate this on win11 but I don't see a reason to upgrade.

The way there is fairly simple, actually:

OOSU Shutup10: this removes pretty much all the annoyances. https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

Classicshell: Microsoft is never going to make a start menu that doesn't suck again, but others will. http://www.classicshell.net/

Everything search: classicshell comes with a pretty decent windows search replacement, but you should use this instead. It is so, so fast. https://www.voidtools.com/

StartIsBack -> Classic Shell

Check http://www.classicshell.net/ I'm using that since Windows 8.1 till now in Win 10, still works pertfectly even on low end laptops!

There are third party apps for doing so: http://www.classicshell.net/ http://www.classicstartmenu.com/

Let me tell you a secret. There's something called Classic Shell, and you can reskin your GUI of your task bar and start menu to fit your preference. It keeps me sane.

I've been using this since I switched to windows 10.http://www.classicshell.net it actually shows what you have on your drives instead of bing searches XD

IMO, Windows is just fine with Classic Shell. I don't know how people get by without it since Windows 8.

http://www.classicshell.net/

You can use https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher to change the hotkey

> Windows 11 brings absolutely nothing on the table

It also removes a leg from the table, the one labelled 'usability'.

Attaching a 3rd-party leg to fill the gap helps (https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher), but it's not an ideal solution

ExplorerPatcher

I had more problems with it being wide, merging all app windows in a single icon, showing only icon rather then app title, and not being able to move to top of screen

That may be fixed with https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher which restores win10 bar, there's no builtin solution to any of the above afaik

Thanks for letting me know. I looked into it, and apparently it's still even possible to activate on later versions of Windows with registry edits and helper software: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/discussions/167

Not going to install something that seems so vague, but I do use ExplorerPatcher [1] on my Windows 11 machines to basically re-create Windows 10 UI and fix all of the annoyances I have with Windows 11. I've got the old right click menu, the old task bar, the old alt-tab interface, pretty much the whole thing. Only reason I use Windows 11 over Windows 10 is because Windows 11 seems to handle my triple monitor setup better, especially when waking up from sleep.

[1] - https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher