How To Make Windows 10 Look And Feel Like Windows 7
Elliott Davis
For better or worse, you've upgraded to Windows 11 or performed a Windows 11 clean install, but that doesn't mean you have to live with all aspects of the new user interface. Perhaps, like me, you hate the new Start Menu because it gives you fewer icons while taking up more space. Maybe you're enraged that the right-click menus only show you about seven options at a time -- and not necessarily the best seven -- and then make you click "Show more options" to see them all. Or you might just want the ribbon back in Windows Explorer.
The good news is that, with a combination of registry tweaks, third-party apps and some different art work, you can get a lot of the look and feel of Windows 10 back in Windows 11. The bad news is that Microsoft doesn't seem to want you to go back to a previous UI so it may disable any registry hacks you use in future updates.
One Windows 10 feature you might miss is the ability to maintain separate taskbar icons for each of your windows. By default Windows 10 and 11 both combine all your windows from a particular program -- for example, your web browser -- into a single icon, which you must hover over to see the window titles. However, in Windows 10 and -- if you use one of the hacks below -- you can change this behavior.
One of the most non-Windows things about Windows 11 is its default wallpaper, which looks like some kind of flower. Unfortunately, the other preloaded wallpapers aren't much better as none of them has the famous Windows logo on them.
So, even though it is a minor change, getting the default Windows 10-branded wallpaper on your Windows 11 desktop will really make it look and feel like the older OS. To get the Windows 10 wallpaper in Windows 11:
The Windows 10 look and feel would not be complete without using the same recycle bin icon. To be honest, the Windows 11 recycle bin doesn't look radically different from the old version, but it is a slightly different angle that shows a head-on view of the bin rather than the original, three-quarter view.
By following all of these steps, you can a Windows 11 interface that looks and feels a lot more like Windows 10, along with some of the functionality you might miss the most. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that all of these hacks keep working as new Windows 11 builds get released.
Windows 10 offers a number of benefits over its predecessors, including improved boot and wake-from-sleep times, the ability to run Universal apps, the Cortana voice assistant and Xbox game streaming. It even has a Start Menu, a key feature that is infamously missing from Windows 8. But what if you like the improved performance and features of Windows 10, but you prefer the look and feel of Windows 7? While you can't make everything look identical to Microsoft's old operating system, you can change many key elements, including the Start Menu, wallpaper and taskbar.
Windows 10 brings back the Start Menu . . . sort of. While there is a Start Menu, it's very different from the one in Windows 7 and you may not like the differences. Instead of providing a list of icons and folders, the new Start Menu has a set of flashy, but space-wasting, live tiles on its right side and a list of frequently used apps on the left side. You can add live tiles, but you cannot pin a simple icon to the left side like you could in Windows 7 and XP. Fortunately, you can install a third-party Start Menu that looks and functions the way you want it to. There are a couple of Windows 10-compatible Start apps out there, but we like Classic Shell, because it's free and very customizable.
Download the Windows 7 Start button image from this thread if you want your Start button to look authentic. There are several custom buttons available. Then navigate to the Start Button tab, select Custom button and browse to the image. If you don't see a Start Button tab, make sure Show All Settings is checked.
The Windows 10 lock screen you get when you boot up or wake from sleep looks attractive but wastes your time. You have to click or swipe to get rid of it, and then you still get hit with the login prompt. In Windows 7, you boot straight to login prompt and you can do the same in Windows 10 if you make a simple registry edit.
While some people feel that Windows 10 and 11 have an appealing look, others appreciate the old days and the more classic Windows 7 look. If dealing with the appearance of Windows 10 has had you down these last seven years or Windows 11 has you wishing for a callback to the traditional Window look, you have options!
Step 1: Download StartAllBack. This is a full package to change Windows 11 into a more traditional UI that brings back many classic favorites, including features from both Windows 10 and Windows 7. You can get a permanent license key for only a couple of bucks if you like how it looks.
Many people forget about choosing the right font when emulating the look and feel of retro computer systems. This is a classic blunder. Without the right font, the system will never look quite right.
Isn't it that back when windows 11 doesn't exist, everybody or mostly say windows 10 looks very inconsistent. Now others would have the audacity to say that windows 11 design look like a toy? LOL just look at windows 10 icon set, Look at the Design guideline, Some icons are flat, some are skeuomorphic(real life looking). Just look at the taskbar. Yes the Angled windows start button logo is nostalgic but lets accept it, windows 11 execution of this is better. Don't even say that windows 11 has a lot of inconsistency, Like how? the icons design rule is great, all exposed apps look more consistent like notes, store, file explorer etc. but the inconsistency of windows 10 is just not comparable. LOL the settings app is very hard to navigate. The file explorer looks like designed in html without the addition of css styling.
I'm working on a visual studio 2005 vb.net windows forms project that's been around for several years. It's full of default textboxes, labels, dropdowns, datagrids, datetime pickers -- all the standard stuff. The end result is a very gray, old-looking project.
Put in some new 3D and glossy images. You can put a big yellow exclamation mark on a custom warning dialog. Replace old toolbar buttons with new ones. Two libraries I have used and like are GlyFX and IconExperience. You can find free ones too. Ideally get a graphic artist to make some custom ones for the specific actions your application does to fill in between the common ones you use (make sure they all go together). That will go a long way to making it look fancy.
You also might look at replacing your old tool bars and menus with a Ribbon Control like Microsoft did in Office 2007. Then everyone will think you are really uptown! Again only replacing key components and UI elements without thinking you need to revamp the whole UI.
What this will do is make sure that the app uses the system defaults for radio buttons, standard buttons and the like. This takes all your apps from the flat Win 2000 look and gives them the XP or Vista bling depending on the OS they are running.
Here's another visual transformation guide. We saw quite a few of those on Dedoimedo, including how to makeWindows XP look like Windows 7, then how to make the latter look like Windows 8, and we also dabbled in Android, changing itsappearance to be like Windows Phone and Ubuntu Phone. Yup.
Now, we will make Windows, specifically the latest Windows 10 TechnicalPreview, look somewhat like Mac OS X Yosemite, so that you can feel posh and special and stylish. Not that thestocks looks are bad, mind, but we wanna have some fun, and this tutorial will show you how to do that. Afterme.
We've just started. Now, you will need to invest some of your time and imagination in making everythingpresentable. All right, MetroSidebar looks like an interesting concept, but it is really unnecessary, so wewill chuck it away. You might as well install a Mac-like wallpaper for extra authenticity.
The taskbar will be relocated to the top of the screen and made small, white and fancy, with the themelookalike borrowed from Mac and some versions of Linux. You might want to consider setting the taskbar toauto-hide. Furthermore, you might also want to hide the Recycle Bin from the desktop for a clean, tidy effect.
However, windows titles maybe be surrounded in a rectangle of a different color from the window border color,so you will have to right-click on the desktop > Personalize, and change the color balance until you get thedesired transparency effect. And you will be enjoying yourself, for sure:
There are several optional things you may want to consider. For me, it was the choice of monochrome icons(black & white), to make the dock look even more presentable and classy. This has nothing specifically todo with Mac OS X, but it may give you new ideas and inspiration for how to alter and polish your Windows themeeven further. Please take a look, or just ignore completely. Your choice.
I chose the ecqllipse 2 iconset from deviantArt, and then individually replaced the icons in the RocketDock. Goes well with the Mac theme,and the reduced number of different colors makes it all feel expensive.
This is a very neat tutorial. Personally, I like the Windows 8/10 flat theme, but this transformation is alsoquite cool, and it might infuse your system with new, unexpected freshness. The process is fairly simple, withsafe restore points, no need for any reboots, and everything is fully reversible. Should you not want anyextras, just make sure the Skin Pack added programs do not startup with Windows, place the taskbar at thebottom, reset the theme, and you're done. You're back to defaults.
App windows have new features like rounded corners and a menu with snap layouts that your app will automatically receive in most cases. If you've customized your window or title bar, you might need to do some work to make sure these new features are supported.
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