Windows 11 comes with significantly less bloatware than Windows 10 – but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. There are a lot of immediately annoying features that most people won’t like on a new Windows 11 PC, though thankfully, Candy Crush not one of them.
Disable sticky key popup
This helpful message about Sticky Keys has caught the attention of Windows users for decades. You’ve seen it, your grandmother has seen it, and extraterrestrials secretly describing human behavior have even seen it.
The criticism isn’t to say that the Sticky Keys don’t have their place – they certainly do. Enabling Fixed Keys changes the way the Control, Shift, Alt, and Windows keys work. Instead of being a push button that only works when depressed, they act more like toggle switches that stay on until specifically turned off. For some, it’s an invaluable quality-of-life feature that makes accessing hotkeys significantly easier.
The problem with the Fixed Keys popup is that it’s very easy to trigger it by accident. Luckily, you can disable pop-ups entirely in Accessibility Options. Click the Start button, type “sticky keys” in the search bar, then click “Fixed keys” or “Open”.
You can also open the Settings app and navigate to Accessibility > Keyboard > Landing Keys to find these options.
Click the switch next to “Shortcuts for sticky keys” in the “Off” position.
That’s it – the Fixed Keys popup won’t appear anymore, no matter how much you press the Shift key.
Turn off additional telemetry
You cannot opt out of all data telemetry on Windows 11 without completely disconnecting your Windows PC from the Internet. You can pretty much limit it in the Settings app. Click the Start button, type “Diagnosis and feedback” in the search bar, then click “Open.” It’s also accessible through the Settings app, under Privacy and Security > Diagnostics and feedback.
There are quite a few separate options for limiting different types of diagnostic data here.
You will need to implement and disable them individually. Start with “Diagnostic data”. Click the v (small arrow without a tail) on the right, then click the toggle next to “Send optional diagnostic data” to the off position.
Repeat that process for “Improve Writing and Typing” and “Relevant Experience”.
Then, open the “Clear diagnostic data” section and click “Delete” to delete all the additional data Microsoft has collected.
Finally, scroll to the bottom and change “Response frequency” to “Never”.
You will not send any unnecessary data to Microsoft and you will not receive a prompt to provide feedback manually.
Remove Bing from Start Menu Search
Bing search results have been included in Start Menu search queries for some of the latest versions of Windows. Does anyone want that, though? Do the searches you run for local files and programs really need to be sent to the Bing search engine?
A few minutes of registry modification can disable Bing in the Start Menu permanently. In addition, we also include a pre-made registry key to get the job done in seconds.
Move the Start button back
Windows 11 has completely redesigned the taskbar and Start Menu. The Start button has been moved to the bottom center of the screen instead of being placed at the bottom left. Those familiar with macOS or some Linux distributions (with the GNOME desktop environment) may like the new taskbar included with Windows 11, but longtime Windows users will likely be less interested in it. – the Start button is located at the bottom left corner almost 27 years.
Microsoft has changed or removed a number of features that were present in Windows 11. Fortunately for everyone, the ability to move the Start button back to its historic home page is not one of them. To do so, right-click on an empty space on the taskbar and click “Taskbar Settings”.
Note: You can also open the Settings app, then go to Personalization > Taskbar.
Scroll down until you see the section titled “Taskbar Behavior” and expand it if needed by clicking the little V (like a dead arrow) on the right-hand side. Click the drop-down box next to “Align Taskbar” and set it to “Left”.
The Start button will immediately move back to the left corner and all will be back to the world.
Remove the New Right Click Menu and restore the old menu
The Windows right-click menu is another age-old feature that has been significantly reworked in Windows 11. Instead, it trades classic text copy, cut, paste, and rename options for icons. The new menu shown below is on the left and the old menu is on the right.
New right-click menu look pretty good, but it’s not necessarily more usable than the old one. The icons at the top are reminiscent of the kind of thing you’ll encounter in user interfaces designed for touch devices, like mobile phones or tablets, rather than mice and keyboards. Luckily, you can get your old context menus back with a quick registry hack.
RELATED: How to get back the old context menu in Windows 11
Bring back the old labeled taskbar icons
The taskbar icons that Windows 11 asks you to use all have something to do with them: they’re minimalistic, and there’s a certain elegance to minimalism. However, that comes at the expense of efficiency. Microsoft disabled (or accidentally broke) the LastActiveClick registry hack in Windows 11 and removed the labeled taskbar icons entirely, so if you have multiple instances of the same program, open that up. , you’re stuck hovering over the icon and then clicking the version you want.
That hardly works – just scan the version you want and click it directly will be faster. Stardock filled the void for Microsoft, the same way it has for decades. The company has released a program, Start11, that allows you to restore taskbar labels on Windows 11.
Note: Start11 is not free; it costs 6 dollars. However, it’s well worth it if you don’t like the Windows 11 taskbar and Start Menu.
Edit Start menu
Windows users are notoriously sensitive about changes to the Start Menu. Windows 8’s Start menu is notoriously hard to pick up on. Windows 10 learned from that mistake while taking some aesthetic inspiration from it. Windows 11’s Start Menu is said to be a step back from the utility that Windows 10 provides to users. Once again, Start11 comes to the rescue.
Start11 lets you choose the Start Menu look – you can choose between Windows 7 Style, Modern Style, Windows 10 style, or use the default Windows 11 look. Just click on the one you like and it will automatically be applied.
All of them work well, and the Windows 10 option allows you to restore the information density that made the Windows 10 Start Menu so real.
Turn on Dark Mode
Windows has had an official dark mode since Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, but Windows 11 still comes with a blinding white user interface (UI). Dark mode or dark themes are in vogue right now, so why don’t you enable dark mode on Windows 11?
RELATED: How to Enable Dark Mode for Google Chrome
Right-click an empty space on your desktop, click “Personalize,” then “Colors.” You can select “Dark” from the drop-down menu at the top of the page.
RELATED: How to enable Dark Mode on Windows 11
Enable DNS over HTTPS
DNS Over HTTPS started to become popular in 2020, but Windows 10 is not yet officially supported. Windows 11 has fixed that shortcoming – the DNS Over HTTPS option has been present in the operating system since day one.
DNS Over HTTPS encrypts your DNS Server requests so that third parties, like your Internet Service Provider, cannot see what web pages you request from the DNS Server or perform an attack. mediator against you.
Microsoft has integrated DNS Over HTTPS right in the new Settings app, so enabling it on Windows 11 is understandable.
RELATED: How to enable DNS over HTTPS on Windows 11
Customize your gadgets
Windows has had widgets since the Windows Sidebar was introduced with Windows Vista, although they were then called gadgets, not widgets. Since then, Microsoft has tried several variations of widgets, and Windows 11 is no exception. It offers a variation of Windows 10’s News & Interests widget. Tapping the widget button opens a window showing your local weather and a bunch of items that Microsoft thinks you’ll be interested in.
If you’re not a fan of widgets (or at least this implementation,) removing them is simple. Go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar, then click the toggle next to “Widgets.”
Tip: You can also just hit the Start button and type “taskbar” in the search field. Click on the result and it will take you straight to the page.
If you want to customize the content, you can – just click the little plus button on the top right.
You can add some predefined items, or you can click “Manage Interests” at the bottom to manually select the interests to show in the feed.
Note: Clicking on “Manage Interests” will take you to the MSN website.
Change default browser
Microsoft made it unreasonably difficult to change Windows 11’s default browser when the operating system was released, then doubled that by experimenting with features that proactively block alternatives. . Unexpectedly, it wasn’t a particularly popular move – Microsoft started streamlining the process in response to user feedback.
The first thing you need to do is install the browser you want to use, be it Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or some other choice.
RELATED: How to change the default web browser on Windows 11
Then, open the Settings app, click the “Apps” tab, and click “Default apps.”
Scroll through the list of programs until you see the browser you have installed, click it, then click “Set Default” at the top of the page.
While there are some changes that aren’t particularly popular, there are some good things that come with the release of Windows 11. For example, the new Settings app is significantly sleeker and more user-friendly than the previous version. version found in Windows 10. There are also plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future of Windows 11 – 22H2, a major update likely to release in the second half of the year. of 2022, has a lot of great features.
RELATED: What’s New in Windows 22H2 Update 11: 10 Top New Features
