How to force Windows 11 to use the classic Start Menu

[javajolt]

To enable the Windows 10 Start Menu in Windows 11, you can either download a Registry file that can enable the feature for you or modify the Windows Registry to enable the feature.

The easiest method is to simply download the show-classic-start-menu.reg Registry file and save it to your desktop. Once downloaded, double-click on it, and when prompted, select Yes at the UAC prompt followed by Yes at the prompt asking if you wish to add the data, as shown below.


Import Registry file prompt

If you want to manually enable the Windows 10 Start Menu in Windows 11 via the Registry, you can follow these steps:

 1. Click the Start button, type regedit, and select Registry Editor when displayed, as shown below.


Open Registry Editor

2. Windows will now prompt you to allow Registry Editor to make changes. Press Yes at this User Account Control dialog box.


UAC prompt

3. When the Registry Editor application opens, copy and paste the following path into the address field as illustrated in the image below and press enter on your keyboard.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\


Enter path into the Registry Editor

4. After pressing enter, you will be shown a list of values under the Advanced folder. Scroll down until you see 'Start_ShowClassicMode' and then double-click on it to open it.


Find the Start_ShowClassicMode value

5. When the Start_ShowClassicMode dialog box opens, enter 1 in the 'Value data' field and press the OK button.


Set the Start_ShowClassicMode value to 1

6. You can now close the Registry Editor.

7. To enable the classic Start Menu, you can restart Windows, log off and back on, or open Task Manager and restart the Windows Explorer process.

You will now be shown the classic Windows 10 Start Menu when you click on the Start button.

To make it feel even more like Windows 10, you can left-align the taskbar icons and Start button by right-clicking on the Taskbar and selecting 'Taskbar settings.'

When the settings open, change the 'Taskbar alignment' option to 'Left' as shown below.


Windows 11 Taskbar settings

Now Windows 11, will feel just like Windows 10, but with a few different icons.

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