The topic 6 Windhawk mods I use to make Windows 11 look like Windows 10 is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
Despite Microsoft streamlining a lot of the Windows 11’s UI compared to previous versions of Windows, developers have found ways to make things look more unique. One such method is through an app called Windhawk, which offers a wide range of mods to customize various aspects of the Windows experience.
While it can do a lot more, one of the great things you can do with Windhawk is make your Windows 11 desktop look a bit more like it did back on Windows 10, and if you’re curious as to how, here are six mods you can use to do exactly that.
Not everyone is a fan of the look of Windows 11, and if you want to go back to the Windows 10 look, you can do so with these tools.
The first piece of this puzzle is the Start menu, which changed quite a bit in Windows 11, and arguably for the worse. If you miss having a full list of apps next to a set of pinned tiles, the Windows 11 Start Menu Styler mod can do exactly that, though it has many other options, too.
In theory, all you need to do is install the mod, then go into its settings and choose the Windows10 theme, or, if you don’t want tiles at all and just prefer the app list, Windows10 (Minimal). This kind of works, but when tried this, I noticed that the app list was actually shown as a grid rather than a list, and there’s no option to change it.
Instead, you can first use a theme like SideBySide, and use that theme to change the app list to be displayed in list form rather than a grid. Then, when you switch back to the Windows10 theme, it will retain that look and mimic Windows 10 much better.
Revamp your Windows experience with smarter Start menu alternatives and tweaks—boost efficiency, streamline navigation, and work faster
The taskbar is another part of Windows 11 that looks a bit different from Windows 10, and the appropriately named Windows 11 Taskbar Styler can help here, too, even though it’s not exactly perfect.
After installing the mod, instead of a Windows 10 theme, the closest we have is a SunValley theme, which oddly enough was the codename for Windows 11. However, this does brings things a little closer to the Windows 10 style. Most notably, with this theme, the taskbar becomes more translucent, as it used to be on Windows 10, and the Start menu icon is replaced by one that has a more similar shape to that of Windows 10, though with more color. The Notification Center icon is also tweaked to look a little more like the older OS.
This theme is more of a hybrid between Windows 11 and 10, but it does help.
The Windows 11 taskbar may seem basic, but there’s a lot you can change about it. Here are a few ways you can boost your productivity.
One thing the mod above doesn’t address is that the Windows 11 taskbar is a few pixels taller than that of Windows 10, and there’s no option to adjust it. This Windhawk mod fixes exactly that, though it comes with some extra helpful features.
By default, this mod actually increases the size of the taskbar from 48 pixels to 52, but this is so it can accommodate larger app icons (32 pixels instead of 24), which look less blurry.
But if you want the Windows 10 experience, you can use this mod’s settings to change the taskbar height to 40 pixels, just as it was on Windows 10, and change the icons back to 24 pixel sizes. Of course, Windows 10 offered a few resizing options, too, so you can mess with these settings to get whatever look you prefer, but the numbers mentioned above will get you the closest to the default Windows 10 experience.
Microsoft may have just announced that the ability to move the taskbar is returning to Windows 11 in the near future, but long before that, Windhawk was already giving us that much-needed improvement. We have a two-for-one deal on mods here, as there are two mods that do different specific things.
Taskbar on top for Windows 11 simply moves the taskbar to the top of your screen, which works fairly seamlessly considering it just has to change positions. This mod plays nice with other mods mentioned above, so your taskbar height settings and style are retained.
Vertical taskbar for Windows 11 is a little different since it needs extra considerations for the vertical format. It has its own resizing options so you can choose how wide it is, and funnily enough, it seems to rotate the Start menu icon set by the Taskbar Styler mentioned above. Still, it’s functional.
This one is a little more tame than previous mods because bringing up the whole structure of the Windows 10 notification center (or action center, as it was called) isn’t really possible in this way. Your quick actions will still have a separate menu.
Instead, you can at least use this mod and enable the Unified style to remove the gaps when you open the notification center, and fill it it with color as the old action center used to be. It’s a small step, but it can help.
Finally, we have a relatively simple one that essentially restores the Windows 10-style functionality of the context menus in Windows 11. Rather than the “modernized” designs that have fewer options available, this mod makes it so that right-clicking in File Explorer or the desktop opens the classic context menu, which is usually hidden behind the Show more options button.
This is something that’s relatively easy to do yourself with some changes to the registry, but this is a potentially easier and safer way to do it if you’re worried about breaking something in the registry.
Again, this is just scratching the surface of what Windhawk can do on your PC, and even the mods above have options unrelated to Windows 10 that look very cool. The Start menu and taskbar stylers in particular have some fun designs that can help keep your desktop fresh.
If you’re truly focused on bringing back the Windows 10 experience, you also have other options like ExplorerPatcher, which are a bit more focused and go more in-depth in some cases.