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GregR's customizing Windows 11 thread (1 Viewer)

GregR

Footballguy
Windows 11 isn't bad, but there's a few customizations I'm finding for improving things. Going to post them in this thread.
 
First things first. Each time I've started Windows 11, I have had OneDrive try to take control of my Documents, Pictures, etc. Which I hate because on a desktop I will move those to another drive so they are not on my OS drive taking up space. OneDrive will commandeer them even after I've moved them off of C:.

If you use OneDrive, great then skip this.


Edit: Actually can just go into OneDrive's Settings to the Accounts tab, and choose Unlink This PC, instead of doing the stuff below.

And... even doing that, it still stole my Documents folder and stuck it in One drive. And won't let it be moved. Argh. So to move Documents:

1) Search for "command" to find command tool, run as administrator
2) Go find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folder
3) Change the Personal value to be the path you want for Documents.
4) Open Task Manager (right click on task bar) and find your Windows Explorer and right click to restart it.

Can also go into Settings -> Storage -> Advanced -> Where new content is saved ... and set a few locations there.
 
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Return to the Windows 10 right click menu.

So the old right click menu was much more useful, and now you have to either choose to show more options to get there, or shift + right click to get to it. Or, you can do these steps to just make the old one the default. Before doing this, take a look at how it is now, and how it used to look.

Source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-11/a62e797c-eaf3-411b-aeec-e460e6e5a82a


Before doing this, I'd make a system restore point or back up your registry. (Back up registry: type in "regedit" into search. Run it. Click on Computer. Click on Export and save it somewhere).


1) Run command prompt as administrator (type in cmd into search, right click on Command Prompt and Run as Administator).

2) Copy paste the following in and hit return:

reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve

3) Restart Windows explorer (or you can reboot). Launch an explorer window just so one is open. Then right click on the Task Bar and choose "Task Manager". Click on "Processes" and if it isn't sorted by "Name" click there as well. You should see Windows Explorer in the list. Right click it and choose "Restart". Now if you open explorer again, the right click should be the old one.
 
Remove OneDrive from the Navigation Pane in Windows Explorer

NOTE: If you do the step in the post two above this and just Unlink This PC on the Accounts tab, then don't need to do the below.




Since I hate OneDrive I don't want it taking up space in my navigation pane. If you want to remove it from there, do the following.

Source: https://www.top-password.com/blog/remove-onedrive-from-file-explorer-in-windows-11/

I would back up the registry or create a system restore point first.

1) Open Registry Editor. (regedit in search window, click Registry Editor)

2) Copy and paste the following given path in the address bar and hit Enter:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}

3) Double-click the DWORD System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree on the right pane. Change the value from 1 to 0.

Now when you open Explorer it won't be there.
 
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Add Other Disk Drives to Navigation Pane in Explorer

I have a number of extra disk drives. Removable drives show up automagically in the navigation pane at bottom. But internal drives do not. So here is how you can add those drives. I'm going to just point to the links rather than try to list the steps here.

C-drive:

D-drive:

E-drive:
 
Move the Task Bar info back to the left side of the screen:

1) Right click on the taskbar and choose Taskbar Settings.
2) Click Taskbar Behaviors
3) Taskbar Alignment select "Left"
 
Edit: This seems to have been related to moving AppData to another drive. Going to no longer do that as have a large enough C: drive on this build.


Had a weird thing when I first started on new Windows 11 machine. I couldn't open text files or JPGs or the like, until I manually launched Notepad and Photos for the first time. I wonder if maybe they weren't fully installed or something, and then went to the Windows Store to get them when I ran them the first time?

I'm not sure what it is, but if you see that you can't access certain file types, try launching the program you expect them to show up in manually the very first time, then see if it works after that.
 
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A few things I would usually load:

7zip - a better zipping tool and format. It will add itself to the right context menu, but might have to go into Default Apps and set it in place of the Zip tool. https://www.7-zip.org/download.html
(Side note on 7zip... if you try to drag and drop to a folder to extract, but then leave the folder before it's done, it will fail. Not sure if that's a Windows 11 bug or all versions. In any event, if you have a really big extraction, use the Extract button rather than drag and drop to avoid it.)

VLC media player - video player I use instead of the default Windows ones. Will have to use Default Apps to associate file types with it. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Treesize - I use the free version. Great for listing the size of folders rapidly instead of having to do Properties on them one by one. https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free

Windows 7 games for Windows 11, 10 and 8 - The classic solitaire, minesweeper, etc games. https://win7games.com/
 
Phone Link is hugely useful to me. Being on the computer and able to send/receive texts from my phone, transfer files and pictures, etc. So that's one I definitely set up.
 
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I'm still searching for a way to bring back the old Quick Launch style menu down on the Taskbar. There is a github project called Explorer Patcher that apparently had it working. But when I tried to install it I got nothing. It didn't seem to install even. Also I saw a number of bug reports that sounded like sometimes windows patches would come out and people with it would break in painful ways until the guy updated Explorer Patcher. So I think I'm not going to recommend it.

There is another method which creates an app and pins it and has that function as the Quick Launch. I haven't tried it yet. But might give it a try when I get some time. If anyone else tries it, let me know what you think: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-use-quick-launch-toolbar-in-windows-11
 
Turn on seeing file extensions. Generally helpful, but can help prevent you getting tricked by malware like if you go to download an image but instead a site gives you a .exe.

In Explorer, VIew-> Show -> File name extensions.
 
I found the default power settings had the computer going to sleep way too quickly.

Type in Power, and click the optimize your device based on power use. Expand "Screen and sleep" and set it to what you want.
 
Privacy stuff

Open Settings. Type in "Privacy" and click on Privacy Settings.

Of the four options I turn off all but "Let websites show me locally relevant content by access my language list".
 
More privacy. Open Explorer. Click the 3 dots. Click Options.

Click the View tab. Scroll down halfway to "Show sync provider notifications" and uncheck it to remove some ability to force ads on you.
 
Back to Explorer and the navigation pane. Anything I don't really use like the Videos folder, right click on and "Unpin from Quick Access".

I usually leave Documents, Downloads and Pictures pinned. And I add my other computers on my network (type in the computer name into the path as \\Name ... and then once it is there, right click and Pin to Quick Access.
 
Getting an error from windows security about Local Security Authority not being turned on. So there's a windows 11 bug it will complain about it even if it's on.

First few places I found telling how to make sure it's on were wrong. And also instructions on how to turn it on tell you to go look for a Settings entry that has been removed. So first to confirm it is on:
  1. Type Event Viewer into search and open it.
  2. Go to Windows Logs > System
  3. Click on the "Source" column header to alphabetize them by source
  4. Scroll down to where it starts with "L" and look for "LSA (LsaSrv)". Note this log is going to be huge so you may have to scroll down a long way. It'll be the first thing after Kernel but there will be thousands of Kernel entries. https://www.elevenforum.com/attachments/1682057194587-png.58397/
If you find it there then it's on and you can ignore the message. If the message bugs you, you can do a few registry edits to stop it from giving the warning, but it won't change any thing. Not going to bother putting the registry edits here, but you can google them if you want.
 
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For folders with a lot of video files... in Windows Explorer the "Date" column for a video file is the data extracted from the file's metadata. Which means folders with a lot of videos can take forever to sort by date, or even just to display that information.

So right click on Date and deselect it, and instead choose Date Modified which is the last change date for the file from the filesystem. Allows instant sorting of big directories.

Also want to set the folder type (right click, Properties -> Customize) to General Items.
 
So... and here's one of the reasons I took the time to record all this. I mean one of them is so it is of use to anyone else. Another is, because my damn GPU crashed the cpu, I had to hold down the power to shut it down to reboot. And it corrupted system files and after repairing them, stuff still won't work. So tomorrow I'm reinstalling windows on my month old machine. :(
 
Pinning a .bat file to the task bar (or start menu). From here.

Windows 11:

1. Right-click on an empty space on your desktop, go to New, and then click on Shortcut.

2. Enter the following text:

cmd /c "full path to your batch file"
For example:

cmd /c "D:\cygwin64\Cygwin.bat"

3. Click on the Next button in the bottom right corner of the window.

4. Enter a name for the shortcut.

5. Click on the Finish button in the bottom right corner of the window. (If you want to change the icon, do it now, right click-> Properties -> Change icon)

6. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and then click on Pin to Start or right-click on the newly created shortcut > Show more options > Pin to taskbar.
 
Windows Terminal is now the default spot for holding command prompt, powershell, etc.

You can add other terminals like Git Bash or Cygwin terminal into it, even have them be the default:

 
Nice thread @GregR !

I will add that I am partial to having my task bar on the left side of my screen. Not possible in 11 like it was in 10. I've used this for months without issue: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

I think that's one I looked at in hoping to get back to having a quick launch menu. Which you could manually set up in Windows 10, but need something else for 11 to get it back. Though I'd seen in comments when I'd looked that sounded like as Windows upgrades came out, that had broken at various times. So I didn't give it a try yet. Good to hear if it's working for you without issues though, might have to try it later.

As for what I wanted it for, a quick launch menu, there's also some other option that is basically a program that appears on the right that then will launch things for you. Haven't tried it either though.
 
By the way if you let the computer sleep but you find it seems to randomly wake up on its own, there's a network setting that might help with it:

 

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