One of the most controversial aspects of the new Windows 11 is its start menu . This new menu comes with a completely renewed appearance, betting on minimalism and breaking with the “tiles” that we have been seeing since Windows 8. Although from our point of view this start menu has gained a lot with this improvement, many users think otherwise. and they do not want to accept this new menu, just as they do not accept that the taskbar has the icons centered. Luckily, there is always a solution for everything.
Microsoft allows us (at least for now) to choose where we want to place the taskbar icons . Within the Settings panel, in the taskbar section we can find the possibility of centering the icons, or keeping them aligned to the left as they have always been. Regarding the start menu, Windows 11 hid a trick that, with a simple change in the registry, it was possible to re-enable the classic Windows 10 start menu. Unfortunately, this trick will no longer work.
Microsoft removes the ability to return to Windows 10 startup
The latest build of Windows 11, 22000.65, continues to shape Microsoft’s new operating system. Thanks to it, it is possible to continue testing how the new Microsoft operating system will be, which will arrive at the end of the year, with as few problems as possible.
Although it is not reflected in the list of official changes, the community has realized that, once this new build is installed, it is no longer possible to re-enable the classic Windows 10 start menu within this operating system. Even if the registry change is made, and the explorer.exe process is restarted, the system still has the new minimalist menu of this OS.
It is true that the new Windows 11 start menu is gradually improving. For example, in this latest build it has included a very useful search bar , as well as a lot of fixes. And, although we will have no choice but to do it, as with Windows 8 there are already alternatives that allow us to hide it to use the classic menu again.
Get back to using the classic start menu in Windows 11
Although Microsoft has eliminated this possibility, it is still possible to continue using the classic Windows start menu without problems in Windows 11. Although this requires resorting to third-party programs . One of the best alternatives we have for this purpose is OpenShell . This program, free and open source, allows us to supplant the Windows 11 start menu with an alternative menu similar to that of Windows 7, one of the best designs we have been able to find.
Of course, until developers update their programs, they may have some limitations. For example, in the case of this OpenShell, we can only enable the hover option with a custom icon, and aligning the icons to the left . If we want to keep the icons centered on the taskbar, this trick will not work, since we will have two start menus on the taskbar … unless that is what we want.
