7 ms·

The beauty and terror of modding Windows

123 points by wild_pointer 7mo ago

davydm 7mo ago
I gave up modding windows in any meaningful way after the several times I was left with a machine which was unstable, or had some other issue, or simply became 100% broken after a windows update was pushed to my machine. It's a corporate operating system, not a user operating system. If you want to customise your desktop experience and have a stable time of it - this is not your platform, sorry. There is really only one platform for customisation: linux. Because distros and software there have been _designed_ around user choice. Hacks are cool, but inevitably open up vulnerability pathways, not to mention issues with stability and being able to receive security patches, rolled into windows update. It's fine if it's just a personal pc you can reload at any point, but it's pointless for a machine that you require to keep functioning (eg a work machine, or, my personal machine, which does stuff like organise media on a regular basis).
- aleph_minus_one 7mo ago
  > There is really only one platform for customisation: linux. Because distros and software there have been _designed_ around user choice. At least older versions of Windows were quite modifiable: not as radical as on GNU/Linux, but there were a lot of possibilities. Rather with the arrival of smartphones and rising popularity of macOS (which all were rather about "enjoying" a prescribed user experience), Microsoft did a U-turn and started applying this (anti-(?))pattern to Windows, too.
- hrmtst93837 7mo ago
  [flagged]
- xattt 7mo ago
  Everyone is at different points in their journey. Let the DIwhy-ers have their moment. I used to want to mod out Windows XP to look like OS X. Then I had a realization that I just wanted OS X and got that as my next machine because I could. A huge chunk of the population can’t afford to make that jump, or don’t have the will to learn a new OS.
  - applfanboysbgon 7mo ago
    Or aren't trying to mod their Windows XP to look like OS X. I think your case represents an exceptional outlier among people interested in customising their OS to begin with.
torben-friis 7mo ago
>If you dig through Windows enthusiast communities TIL those exist (genuinely). I’ve never met anyone who likes windows, just people who put up with it for work/gaming and people who doesn’t care about the whole thing enough to move from the default (which is totally understandable).
- jeremycarter 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - hackyhacky 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - bialpio 7mo ago
      Cereal is literally grass seeds so you may need to find a different analogy.
      - hackyhacky 7mo ago
        So in your mind there is no difference between Frosted Flakes and grass? Okay.
        deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
  - dghf 7mo ago
    How is it bigotry? I've never met anyone who likes, say, "Baby Shark" (well, anyone with an age in double-digits). I'd be surprised if many -- possibly any -- exist. But if they do, well, de gustibus non est disputandum. None of my business, and I bear no ill-will towards them.
  - torben-friis 7mo ago
    >Is that a problem for you? Do you also act with bigotry over people who don't eat the same breakfast cereal as you? That’s… weirdly agressive. What about me stating I’ve never met a fan of X feels bigoted to you?
baal80spam 7mo ago
Never heard of Windhawk.
- lproven 7mo ago
  This was news to me, too. But I rarely use Windows. I used to like it but for me XP was so ugly and bloated I switched to Linux and OS X full-time. I've never looked back. I just play occasionally to keep my skills vaguely current. Sometimes I need to work with it. Windows 11 is awful. Bloated, full of ads and nags, forcibly keeps your stuff in the crappy MS cloud drive for which there's no Linux GUI client. You can't even put the taskbar on the left edge where it belongs. Worse than Vista or Win ME or even Win 8.x. I moved all my emergency Windows partitions to Win10 IoT LTSC. Quite unbloated, proper local accounts, no Store, no Onedrive, no Modern apps at all. It's what Win10 should have been. And it's getting updates until 2032. So, Windhawk looks fun but I don't need it.
  - Hard_Space 7mo ago
    I moved all my LAN machines to IoT LTSC 2021 a year ago. Though I don’t regret it, be aware that update delay limits are the same as other Windows OS versions; that useful things like WSL2 will need installing from the app store to get the systemd version, and you’ll need to install the Windows app store from an enthusiast repo on Github; that Windows major version number is a fair way behind, affecting max Docker dated releases and same for many other frameworks; etc. It’s not that I meet a new limit every day, but certainly every few weeks.
    - lproven 7mo ago
      Interesting. I almost never use Windows, and I don't want things like WSL or Docker anyway. I mainly keep it around for things like upgrading firmware, occasionally flashing new ROMs onto phones, stuff like that. I tried the MyWhoosh virtual-cycling app on one of my boxes. https://mywhoosh.com/ https://mywhoosh.com/ I was able to download and install the Windows Store direct from Microsoft with no problem at all. https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9wzdncrfjbmp?hl=en-GB&gl=IN https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9wzdncrfjbmp?hl=en-GB&gl=I... (I just Googled that link -- it might not be the right one. MyWhoosh is only available on the Store. It refused to run on my elderly GPU anyway, though.) Thanks for the warning, though!
robmccoll 7mo ago
If you want tweaks that are a little more first party, there's always PowerToys https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
- jeremycarter 7mo ago
  There are genuinely some great power toys available.
  - timpera 7mo ago
    Definitely! I couldn't live without the "Quick Accent" PowerToys to quickly add accents that don't exist on my keyboard, I use it hundreds of times a day.
    - MaanuAir 7mo ago
      Me too, but it is so unreliable laggy, I sometimes have to wait 2 secs or more for the menu to appear, ruining the flow. And typing ALT 0151 to get an em dash, I mean seriously? For someone typing accents and em + en dashes on purpose — well before it becomes an AI’s trait — it’s so infuriating, I can’t believe people type books on Windows. All this while macOS solved this, built in the OS, since ages now…
      - ogurechny 7mo ago
        Ahem. https://ilyabirman.net/typography-layout/ https://ilyabirman.net/typography-layout/ It has been available for 20 years. To use combining characters (and client-side font layout and rendering), type the letter, then one of available dead keys two times (e. g. `a, AltGr+Shift+6, AltGr+Shift+6` gives â). To get the single code point (if it's available), type modifier once, then the letter (e. g. `AltGr+Shift+6, a` gives â). I've been touch typing em dashes for years, and can't imagine it any other way. It seems that corresponding Russian installers are more up to date. You can gently nag the author to update the English version, or just take the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, and do it your way. Be aware that certain silly applications use hard-coded keyboard shortcut handlers that bypass the system, and therefore misbehave if system layout is anything else but default US English. Windows also sometimes likes to resurrect the deleted default layout until the last process that used it exits, or something like that. It has been said multiple times that the absence of proper typography on personal computer keyboards is just laziness, ignorance, and lack of leadership. There are no technical reasons for that — just look at keyboards for European languages.
robmccoll 7mo ago
Speaking of modding desktop environments, has anyone figured out how to get back the old border radius in macOS Tahoe?
operator-name 7mo ago
I’ve been using WindHawk for a bit, and my favourite mods have been: - Slick Window Arrangement (better window snapping): https://windhawk.net/mods/slick-window-arrangement https://windhawk.net/mods/slick-window-arrangement - Better file sizes in Explorer details: https://windhawk.net/mods/explorer-details-better-file-sizes https://windhawk.net/mods/explorer-details-better-file-sizes
- fifticon 7mo ago
  file sizes in explorer is my pet peeve, it should be a builtin. When I am coding and making small projects, I want to see the bytes. I hate that everything is shown as "1 or 2 k". and it is a hazzle to get access to and install of the mods that show bytes column. It should just be an extra column available by default 'Byte Size'.
  - RGamma 7mo ago
    Or automatic column width. Or even setting the same column widths for all folders (try it, it's tough without 3rd party tools). Or the UI hangs with network folders. Or the search that never finds anything. I could go on...
    - layer8 7mo ago
      For the first item, there’s at least a keyboard shortcut that I use regularly: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121030-00/?p=6223 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121030-00/?p=62...
      - RGamma 7mo ago
        It would take one teeny tiny setting to always do this, yet it seems so far away...
        layer8 7mo ago
        As an approximation, you could use AutoHotKey to have the key press sent every 200ms when an Explorer window has focus. ;) Personally, I wouldn’t want to have it automatically, because sometimes you have really long file names, or other columns that can get arbitrarily wide. There would also have to be a configurable maximum column width.
blindstitch 7mo ago
By the time I stopped using windows 10 on my daily driver last year I had 6 tweak apps always running to smooth over the endless papercuts. Now that I'm on KDE I don't have to run anything, it's all doable via stock control panels.
- reddalo 7mo ago
  Me too. I'm on Linux Mint now and I love how simple, fast but also customizable it is. If it's not for some specific games or programs, I don't see a single reason to still use Windows in 2026.
  - aquariusDue 7mo ago
    Yeah, between KDE and Cinnamon I can focus on my work and have the desktop environment gently fade into the background. Though some get a similar feeling using stuff like i3, sway or Niri.
- DuncanCoffee 7mo ago
  Last week I added to my dolphin toolbar the "Show Hidden Files" button so it was always shown, my only issue was that it was a really long because of its text. "But wait!" I thought, "This is not windows, I'm sure I can change it!". Lo and behold, my button now says "Hidden" and it's as short as I want it, just by editing the normal settings, no mods required.
xtiansimon 7mo ago
The only tweak I’d be willing to venture over a janky rope bridge for is a tiling window that doesn’t focus-steal.
mschuster91 7mo ago
> Windhawk makes me think about the future of Windows, too. Microsoft is talking about a “Windows Baseline Security Mode” that PCs will be in by default, only letting properly signed software run and forcing apps to ask for your permission when they access your files, webcam, microphone, and other resources. According to Microsoft, this will only be a default — you can choose to opt out. Yeah, just as I can "choose" to root my Android phone. I can do that, yes, but the result will be that Netflix, banking apps and most games refuse to even start.
stuffoverflow 7mo ago
I recently had the idea of somehow integrating Everything's folder size index to explorer and after failing to do it with claude code, I found out that Windhawk + Better file sizes does just that. I would have expected at least some performance degradation but in fact it was the opposite and made it feel much snappier. A huge QoL improvement to explorer that I've now installed to all my Windows PCs. Note that you need the alpha version (1.5) of Everything for best performance.
- hereme888 7mo ago
  I was recently pointed to your comment. I literally created this yesterday: https://github.com/sm18lr88/win-folder-size https://github.com/sm18lr88/win-folder-size What are the chances.
throwaway613746 7mo ago
[dead]
gus_massa 7mo ago
Somewhat related: A long time ago, I used "7+ Taskbar Tweaker" that added a lot of nice things to Windows 7, like reordering the tasks in the taskbar. Now I'm remembering that the best feature was to ungroup the windows of the same task, that was super nice to edit two documents in Word It used a lot of magic, probably overwriting dll calls in the kernel of Windows. It looks like it only partially support Windows 11 https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker
- krige 7mo ago
  Wasn't that taskbar/windows thing just a toggle in official taskbar settings?
  - kubik369 7mo ago
    I recall that the official setting was everything grouped or everything ungrouped. What GP is referring to is probably the ability to break out a single window from a group.
  - layer8 7mo ago
    See https://superuser.com/questions/559782/windows-7-taskbar-never-combine-still-being-combined https://superuser.com/questions/559782/windows-7-taskbar-nev.... There is a difference between grouping and combining, and 7TT provided many more options.
- layer8 7mo ago
  A replacement for the ungrouping with WindHawk is https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-grouping https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-grouping. There may be other mods that also cover that.
- user_7832 7mo ago
  > A long time ago, I used "7+ Taskbar Tweaker"… Way to make me feel old! I'm still using it! > …to Windows 7 Aah that's better. The tool still works on 10 btw, and offers some options not available otherwise - eg properly narrow taskbar when vertical (about small icon width wide).
fergie 7mo ago
Getting all of this to work on Windows seems like a bit of a thankless task. If customisability is important, why wouldn't you just go over to Linux?
- c0balt 7mo ago
  Platform lock-in is powerful, from the M$ Office Suite to professional software for CAD up to Games
- hexage1814 7mo ago
  As a windows power user myself, many of my workflows don't translate that easily. If you are an experienced Windows user, you probably have programs that you use on Windows and that aren't available for Linux. It's not that you couldn't theoretically translate that workflow into Linux, but boy, it would be a headache. To give an example: I use AutoHotkey, it's a scripting language for Windows that allows you to do a bunch of things. You can customize the keyboard, mouse, you can create menus and toolboxes, you can target specific applications inside. It's a fantastic tool. But it isn't available for Linux for obvious reasons; Linux is much more fragmented. You need like 3 or 5 different programs to achieve the same result in some cases, depending on your given script. In other words: debloating Windows and customizing it is considerably easier than installing Linux. Let alone some really good software you end up finding along the way: Everything, which is an amazing search program that allows you to create custom categories and the like. EmEditor, which is really good software to open and visualize really large text files, like it can open a 4GB txt with no problems. About the last sentence: >If customisability is important People value both things: customisability but also they value their time (of not having to come up with a new workflow), they value the programs and workflow they already learned to use through the years, and so on and so forth.
- layer8 7mo ago
  It’s less work on Windows for many things, and the system of UI events, hooks, and controls is more amenable to universal customization/automation than on Linux, which is more heterogeneous between applications, window managers and desktop environments.
anthk 7mo ago
These hacks will just duplicate code by not using builting Explorer/Shell32 libraries and the like. So in the end you are running two instances of different tools. Also they will be totally useless on updates. Back in the day you could use nLite and the like to replace W98's shell with the Windows 95 one, but keeping the compatibility. On GNU/Linux and BSD, you could use FVWM instead of bloated environments, or Fluxbox, IceWM... and still run things fast. With current Windows tons of components are interleaved.
albert_e 7mo ago
I want to pin my most frequently used folders as favorites to the toolbar of File Explorer (just like we have a favorites bar on Edge browser). Why is this not possible.
- layer8 7mo ago
  I use the Quick access list for that, and have Explorer set to open in it by default. I also take care that the folders all start with different letter, so I can blindly type Win+E Letter Return to open any one of the folders. You can also add shortcuts to folders in the taskbar and use Win+Digit to open them.
  - albert_e 7mo ago
    I use the quick access list but the experience of scrolling and searching through a long tree view is not the same as having fixed toolbar buttons always in one place. And there is a lot of free space on the toolbar i could use. If only Windows allowed tad bit more customization! Will try the shortcut method - thanks for that!
jccx70 7mo ago
[dead]
wink 7mo ago
The most ridiculous thing is that you were simply able to move the taskbar in Win 10 for sure, in Win7 kinda sure and maybe longer... I still don't get why they thought removing this harmless feature would make sense.
- noisem4ker 7mo ago
  The taskbar could be moved to any edge of the screen since its introduction in Windows 95.
ChoGGi 7mo ago
This might be a place for an answer. I've completely disabled explorer.exe from running; among other things it disables the win11 openwith dialog from opening. Replacing with the win10 onew orks, but it'll regularly be replaced with the 11 one by Windows. Any solutions?
- joe_mamba 7mo ago
  Windows 11 has not been built to officially supporting that type of UI customisation out of the box, you're relying on hacks for that, not using official APIs. So since every major Windows update functions as a core OS reinstall, your hacked setup will be restored to a clean slate. You have two choices: Accept this limitation or move to another OS, there's no in-between.
bakugo 7mo ago
> Windhawk may also cause serious problems with PC games that use anti-cheat software. On the project’s explanation page I just linked, there’s a description of how Windhawk hardcodes the default installation paths of many PC games. If you installed games to a different folder — perhaps your Steam folder is on your D: drive — Windhawk will load its DLL into those game processes. You’ll have to go out of your way to exclude that folder to stop it. This was a major concern for me when I first installed Windhawk, too. Since I only use a couple mods for Explorer, I ended up simply excluding every process from injection and explicitly including explorer.exe only. This can be done by going to advanced settings, setting the process exclusion list to nothing but an asterisk, and then adding explorer.exe and any other specifically desired processes into the inclusion list.
chroma_zone 7mo ago
Having spent a few years trying to write Windows utility software, it is really exhausting to be in an antagonistic relationship with Microsoft and have their updates constantly break your work. The article mentions ExplorerPatcher -- the changelog [1] of that project is informative. Every release involves fixing a bunch of things that Microsoft broke, intentionally or not. Some of this is understandable given how it (necessarily) messes with low level OS components, but there is still zero transparency and you just need to roll with whatever changes. I can't imagine doing that kind of work anymore. [1] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases
- asveikau 7mo ago
  This seems to be about injecting your own code into a running process and then modifying its behavior. The kinds of things that would break from build to build are VERY DIFFERENT from what typical applications would face.
  - chroma_zone 7mo ago
    A lot of basic tweaks to windows behavior require those types of unstable hacks. The point is that developers or users who want to modify their system are forced into sketchy software.
KingOfCoders 7mo ago
Windhawk vertical task bar is a game changer for me.
jccx70 7mo ago
[dead]
1970-01-01 7mo ago
What's old is new again. https://web.archive.org/web/20151104081734/http://www.xpize.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151104081734/http://www.xpize....
Grom_PE 7mo ago
Modding Windows is akin to building a sand castle. It might be fun, beautiful, but very much impermanent. You can expect it to be washed off with the next Windows update. I've done it before on Windows 7. Resized system clock, resized start menu button, removed "Terminate batch job (Y/N)?" warning in cmd, etc. Most annoying is that VirtualBox stops working with the patched uxtheme.dll. ... Life on Linux is great. My modifications stick for as long as I want. Permanently if I get my patches upstream.
- 1718627440 7mo ago
  > You can expect it to be washed off with the next Windows update. You can just run Windows in a VM and reset the VM to an older state when Microsoft messes up your settings again.
chankstein38 7mo ago
Man back in the XP days we used to just edit registry entries responsible for these things and use reshack to open binaries for modification.
attentive 7mo ago
"Imagine moving the taskbar" - the state of 2026 windows is pathetic.
specproc 7mo ago
> Windows enthusiast communities Is this some sort of fetish thing?
s3graham 7mo ago
I used to be more of a fetishist, and still use cmd on Windows. My modding contribution from long ago: https://github.com/sgraham/cmdEx https://github.com/sgraham/cmdEx
dmitrygr 7mo ago
Windows UI customization used to be a thing Stardock did with products like "WindowBlinds". Googling around, it seems it still exists and even supports windows 11...wow
klooney 7mo ago
Is Litestep still around? You used to be able to sub out the windows shell...
eviks 7mo ago
> This is awesome. It’s the kind of power that, philosophically, should be available to all PC users out of the box. Oh, brother, preach (and not only PC, where is Mac Airhawk?)! But the OS devils won't be affected! Windhawk is indeed a savior in making some of the UI crimes committed with Windows 11 upgrade at least palatable > A locked-down operating system — like Microsoft’s Windows RT — wouldn’t allow you to do anything like this. But it could! It could allow native styling just like a windhak mod does, without the security concerns! There is no inherent contradiction here So this is just defeatist, especially given the fact they kill useful features they've already delivered: > Microsoft can never deliver every feature people want as part of the Windows operating system. It’s just not possible. So, let it deliver the possible 80%? Would still be a huge improvement!
Kiboneu 7mo ago
My first introduction to patching a blob by hand, was from replacing the winxp taskbar “start” string with my name. Thankfully my name was shorter than the original string. Eventually I just installed linux.
jamesnorden 7mo ago
It's so dumb that with Windows you need so many software just to undo Microsoft's "innovations" and make it somewhat usable. I finally switched all of my personal Machines over to Linux a few months back, since I felt the gaming situation was finally good enough, and I'm never looking back.
hulitu 7mo ago
> But many of them aren’t written by the core developer. Do you trust them? Are you equipped to audit their security? Do you want to trust that these mods will behave as advertised and not cause problems? We shall ask this question for Windows itself, given its past record.

123 points by wild_pointer 7mo ago

I gave up modding windows in any meaningful way after the several times I was left with a machine which was unstable, or had some other issue, or simply became 100% broken after a windows update was pushed to my machine. It's a corporate operating system, not a user operating system. If you want to customise your desktop experience and have a stable time of it - this is not your platform, sorry. There is really only one platform for customisation: linux. Because distros and software there have been _designed_ around user choice. Hacks are cool, but inevitably open up vulnerability pathways, not to mention issues with stability and being able to receive security patches, rolled into windows update. It's fine if it's just a personal pc you can reload at any point, but it's pointless for a machine that you require to keep functioning (eg a work machine, or, my personal machine, which does stuff like organise media on a regular basis).

aleph_minus_one 7mo ago
> There is really only one platform for customisation: linux. Because distros and software there have been _designed_ around user choice. At least older versions of Windows were quite modifiable: not as radical as on GNU/Linux, but there were a lot of possibilities. Rather with the arrival of smartphones and rising popularity of macOS (which all were rather about "enjoying" a prescribed user experience), Microsoft did a U-turn and started applying this (anti-(?))pattern to Windows, too.
hrmtst93837 7mo ago
[flagged]
xattt 7mo ago
Everyone is at different points in their journey. Let the DIwhy-ers have their moment. I used to want to mod out Windows XP to look like OS X. Then I had a realization that I just wanted OS X and got that as my next machine because I could. A huge chunk of the population can’t afford to make that jump, or don’t have the will to learn a new OS.
- applfanboysbgon 7mo ago
  Or aren't trying to mod their Windows XP to look like OS X. I think your case represents an exceptional outlier among people interested in customising their OS to begin with.

torben-friis 7mo ago

>If you dig through Windows enthusiast communities TIL those exist (genuinely). I’ve never met anyone who likes windows, just people who put up with it for work/gaming and people who doesn’t care about the whole thing enough to move from the default (which is totally understandable).

jeremycarter 7mo ago
[flagged]
- hackyhacky 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - bialpio 7mo ago
    Cereal is literally grass seeds so you may need to find a different analogy.
    - hackyhacky 7mo ago
      So in your mind there is no difference between Frosted Flakes and grass? Okay.
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
- dghf 7mo ago
  How is it bigotry? I've never met anyone who likes, say, "Baby Shark" (well, anyone with an age in double-digits). I'd be surprised if many -- possibly any -- exist. But if they do, well, de gustibus non est disputandum. None of my business, and I bear no ill-will towards them.
- torben-friis 7mo ago
  >Is that a problem for you? Do you also act with bigotry over people who don't eat the same breakfast cereal as you? That’s… weirdly agressive. What about me stating I’ve never met a fan of X feels bigoted to you?

baal80spam 7mo ago

Never heard of Windhawk.

lproven 7mo ago
This was news to me, too. But I rarely use Windows. I used to like it but for me XP was so ugly and bloated I switched to Linux and OS X full-time. I've never looked back. I just play occasionally to keep my skills vaguely current. Sometimes I need to work with it. Windows 11 is awful. Bloated, full of ads and nags, forcibly keeps your stuff in the crappy MS cloud drive for which there's no Linux GUI client. You can't even put the taskbar on the left edge where it belongs. Worse than Vista or Win ME or even Win 8.x. I moved all my emergency Windows partitions to Win10 IoT LTSC. Quite unbloated, proper local accounts, no Store, no Onedrive, no Modern apps at all. It's what Win10 should have been. And it's getting updates until 2032. So, Windhawk looks fun but I don't need it.
- Hard_Space 7mo ago
  I moved all my LAN machines to IoT LTSC 2021 a year ago. Though I don’t regret it, be aware that update delay limits are the same as other Windows OS versions; that useful things like WSL2 will need installing from the app store to get the systemd version, and you’ll need to install the Windows app store from an enthusiast repo on Github; that Windows major version number is a fair way behind, affecting max Docker dated releases and same for many other frameworks; etc. It’s not that I meet a new limit every day, but certainly every few weeks.
  - lproven 7mo ago
    Interesting. I almost never use Windows, and I don't want things like WSL or Docker anyway. I mainly keep it around for things like upgrading firmware, occasionally flashing new ROMs onto phones, stuff like that. I tried the MyWhoosh virtual-cycling app on one of my boxes. https://mywhoosh.com/ https://mywhoosh.com/ I was able to download and install the Windows Store direct from Microsoft with no problem at all. https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9wzdncrfjbmp?hl=en-GB&gl=IN https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9wzdncrfjbmp?hl=en-GB&gl=I... (I just Googled that link -- it might not be the right one. MyWhoosh is only available on the Store. It refused to run on my elderly GPU anyway, though.) Thanks for the warning, though!

robmccoll 7mo ago

If you want tweaks that are a little more first party, there's always PowerToys https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/

jeremycarter 7mo ago
There are genuinely some great power toys available.
- timpera 7mo ago
  Definitely! I couldn't live without the "Quick Accent" PowerToys to quickly add accents that don't exist on my keyboard, I use it hundreds of times a day.
  - MaanuAir 7mo ago
    Me too, but it is so unreliable laggy, I sometimes have to wait 2 secs or more for the menu to appear, ruining the flow. And typing ALT 0151 to get an em dash, I mean seriously? For someone typing accents and em + en dashes on purpose — well before it becomes an AI’s trait — it’s so infuriating, I can’t believe people type books on Windows. All this while macOS solved this, built in the OS, since ages now…
    - ogurechny 7mo ago
      Ahem. https://ilyabirman.net/typography-layout/ https://ilyabirman.net/typography-layout/ It has been available for 20 years. To use combining characters (and client-side font layout and rendering), type the letter, then one of available dead keys two times (e. g. `a, AltGr+Shift+6, AltGr+Shift+6` gives â). To get the single code point (if it's available), type modifier once, then the letter (e. g. `AltGr+Shift+6, a` gives â). I've been touch typing em dashes for years, and can't imagine it any other way. It seems that corresponding Russian installers are more up to date. You can gently nag the author to update the English version, or just take the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, and do it your way. Be aware that certain silly applications use hard-coded keyboard shortcut handlers that bypass the system, and therefore misbehave if system layout is anything else but default US English. Windows also sometimes likes to resurrect the deleted default layout until the last process that used it exits, or something like that. It has been said multiple times that the absence of proper typography on personal computer keyboards is just laziness, ignorance, and lack of leadership. There are no technical reasons for that — just look at keyboards for European languages.

robmccoll 7mo ago

Speaking of modding desktop environments, has anyone figured out how to get back the old border radius in macOS Tahoe?

operator-name 7mo ago

I’ve been using WindHawk for a bit, and my favourite mods have been: - Slick Window Arrangement (better window snapping): https://windhawk.net/mods/slick-window-arrangement https://windhawk.net/mods/slick-window-arrangement - Better file sizes in Explorer details: https://windhawk.net/mods/explorer-details-better-file-sizes https://windhawk.net/mods/explorer-details-better-file-sizes

fifticon 7mo ago
file sizes in explorer is my pet peeve, it should be a builtin. When I am coding and making small projects, I want to see the bytes. I hate that everything is shown as "1 or 2 k". and it is a hazzle to get access to and install of the mods that show bytes column. It should just be an extra column available by default 'Byte Size'.
- RGamma 7mo ago
  Or automatic column width. Or even setting the same column widths for all folders (try it, it's tough without 3rd party tools). Or the UI hangs with network folders. Or the search that never finds anything. I could go on...
  - layer8 7mo ago
    For the first item, there’s at least a keyboard shortcut that I use regularly: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121030-00/?p=6223 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121030-00/?p=62...
    - RGamma 7mo ago
      It would take one teeny tiny setting to always do this, yet it seems so far away...
      - layer8 7mo ago
        As an approximation, you could use AutoHotKey to have the key press sent every 200ms when an Explorer window has focus. ;) Personally, I wouldn’t want to have it automatically, because sometimes you have really long file names, or other columns that can get arbitrarily wide. There would also have to be a configurable maximum column width.

blindstitch 7mo ago

By the time I stopped using windows 10 on my daily driver last year I had 6 tweak apps always running to smooth over the endless papercuts. Now that I'm on KDE I don't have to run anything, it's all doable via stock control panels.

reddalo 7mo ago
Me too. I'm on Linux Mint now and I love how simple, fast but also customizable it is. If it's not for some specific games or programs, I don't see a single reason to still use Windows in 2026.
- aquariusDue 7mo ago
  Yeah, between KDE and Cinnamon I can focus on my work and have the desktop environment gently fade into the background. Though some get a similar feeling using stuff like i3, sway or Niri.
DuncanCoffee 7mo ago
Last week I added to my dolphin toolbar the "Show Hidden Files" button so it was always shown, my only issue was that it was a really long because of its text. "But wait!" I thought, "This is not windows, I'm sure I can change it!". Lo and behold, my button now says "Hidden" and it's as short as I want it, just by editing the normal settings, no mods required.

xtiansimon 7mo ago

The only tweak I’d be willing to venture over a janky rope bridge for is a tiling window that doesn’t focus-steal.

mschuster91 7mo ago

> Windhawk makes me think about the future of Windows, too. Microsoft is talking about a “Windows Baseline Security Mode” that PCs will be in by default, only letting properly signed software run and forcing apps to ask for your permission when they access your files, webcam, microphone, and other resources. According to Microsoft, this will only be a default — you can choose to opt out. Yeah, just as I can "choose" to root my Android phone. I can do that, yes, but the result will be that Netflix, banking apps and most games refuse to even start.

stuffoverflow 7mo ago

I recently had the idea of somehow integrating Everything's folder size index to explorer and after failing to do it with claude code, I found out that Windhawk + Better file sizes does just that. I would have expected at least some performance degradation but in fact it was the opposite and made it feel much snappier. A huge QoL improvement to explorer that I've now installed to all my Windows PCs. Note that you need the alpha version (1.5) of Everything for best performance.

hereme888 7mo ago
I was recently pointed to your comment. I literally created this yesterday: https://github.com/sm18lr88/win-folder-size https://github.com/sm18lr88/win-folder-size What are the chances.

throwaway613746 7mo ago

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gus_massa 7mo ago

Somewhat related: A long time ago, I used "7+ Taskbar Tweaker" that added a lot of nice things to Windows 7, like reordering the tasks in the taskbar. Now I'm remembering that the best feature was to ungroup the windows of the same task, that was super nice to edit two documents in Word It used a lot of magic, probably overwriting dll calls in the kernel of Windows. It looks like it only partially support Windows 11 https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker

krige 7mo ago
Wasn't that taskbar/windows thing just a toggle in official taskbar settings?
- kubik369 7mo ago
  I recall that the official setting was everything grouped or everything ungrouped. What GP is referring to is probably the ability to break out a single window from a group.
- layer8 7mo ago
  See https://superuser.com/questions/559782/windows-7-taskbar-never-combine-still-being-combined https://superuser.com/questions/559782/windows-7-taskbar-nev.... There is a difference between grouping and combining, and 7TT provided many more options.
layer8 7mo ago
A replacement for the ungrouping with WindHawk is https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-grouping https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-grouping. There may be other mods that also cover that.
user_7832 7mo ago
> A long time ago, I used "7+ Taskbar Tweaker"… Way to make me feel old! I'm still using it! > …to Windows 7 Aah that's better. The tool still works on 10 btw, and offers some options not available otherwise - eg properly narrow taskbar when vertical (about small icon width wide).

fergie 7mo ago

Getting all of this to work on Windows seems like a bit of a thankless task. If customisability is important, why wouldn't you just go over to Linux?

c0balt 7mo ago
Platform lock-in is powerful, from the M$ Office Suite to professional software for CAD up to Games
hexage1814 7mo ago
As a windows power user myself, many of my workflows don't translate that easily. If you are an experienced Windows user, you probably have programs that you use on Windows and that aren't available for Linux. It's not that you couldn't theoretically translate that workflow into Linux, but boy, it would be a headache. To give an example: I use AutoHotkey, it's a scripting language for Windows that allows you to do a bunch of things. You can customize the keyboard, mouse, you can create menus and toolboxes, you can target specific applications inside. It's a fantastic tool. But it isn't available for Linux for obvious reasons; Linux is much more fragmented. You need like 3 or 5 different programs to achieve the same result in some cases, depending on your given script. In other words: debloating Windows and customizing it is considerably easier than installing Linux. Let alone some really good software you end up finding along the way: Everything, which is an amazing search program that allows you to create custom categories and the like. EmEditor, which is really good software to open and visualize really large text files, like it can open a 4GB txt with no problems. About the last sentence: >If customisability is important People value both things: customisability but also they value their time (of not having to come up with a new workflow), they value the programs and workflow they already learned to use through the years, and so on and so forth.
layer8 7mo ago
It’s less work on Windows for many things, and the system of UI events, hooks, and controls is more amenable to universal customization/automation than on Linux, which is more heterogeneous between applications, window managers and desktop environments.

anthk 7mo ago

These hacks will just duplicate code by not using builting Explorer/Shell32 libraries and the like. So in the end you are running two instances of different tools. Also they will be totally useless on updates. Back in the day you could use nLite and the like to replace W98's shell with the Windows 95 one, but keeping the compatibility. On GNU/Linux and BSD, you could use FVWM instead of bloated environments, or Fluxbox, IceWM... and still run things fast. With current Windows tons of components are interleaved.

albert_e 7mo ago

I want to pin my most frequently used folders as favorites to the toolbar of File Explorer (just like we have a favorites bar on Edge browser). Why is this not possible.

layer8 7mo ago
I use the Quick access list for that, and have Explorer set to open in it by default. I also take care that the folders all start with different letter, so I can blindly type Win+E Letter Return to open any one of the folders. You can also add shortcuts to folders in the taskbar and use Win+Digit to open them.
- albert_e 7mo ago
  I use the quick access list but the experience of scrolling and searching through a long tree view is not the same as having fixed toolbar buttons always in one place. And there is a lot of free space on the toolbar i could use. If only Windows allowed tad bit more customization! Will try the shortcut method - thanks for that!

jccx70 7mo ago

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wink 7mo ago

The most ridiculous thing is that you were simply able to move the taskbar in Win 10 for sure, in Win7 kinda sure and maybe longer... I still don't get why they thought removing this harmless feature would make sense.

noisem4ker 7mo ago
The taskbar could be moved to any edge of the screen since its introduction in Windows 95.

ChoGGi 7mo ago

This might be a place for an answer. I've completely disabled explorer.exe from running; among other things it disables the win11 openwith dialog from opening. Replacing with the win10 onew orks, but it'll regularly be replaced with the 11 one by Windows. Any solutions?

joe_mamba 7mo ago
Windows 11 has not been built to officially supporting that type of UI customisation out of the box, you're relying on hacks for that, not using official APIs. So since every major Windows update functions as a core OS reinstall, your hacked setup will be restored to a clean slate. You have two choices: Accept this limitation or move to another OS, there's no in-between.

bakugo 7mo ago

> Windhawk may also cause serious problems with PC games that use anti-cheat software. On the project’s explanation page I just linked, there’s a description of how Windhawk hardcodes the default installation paths of many PC games. If you installed games to a different folder — perhaps your Steam folder is on your D: drive — Windhawk will load its DLL into those game processes. You’ll have to go out of your way to exclude that folder to stop it. This was a major concern for me when I first installed Windhawk, too. Since I only use a couple mods for Explorer, I ended up simply excluding every process from injection and explicitly including explorer.exe only. This can be done by going to advanced settings, setting the process exclusion list to nothing but an asterisk, and then adding explorer.exe and any other specifically desired processes into the inclusion list.

chroma_zone 7mo ago

Having spent a few years trying to write Windows utility software, it is really exhausting to be in an antagonistic relationship with Microsoft and have their updates constantly break your work. The article mentions ExplorerPatcher -- the changelog [1] of that project is informative. Every release involves fixing a bunch of things that Microsoft broke, intentionally or not. Some of this is understandable given how it (necessarily) messes with low level OS components, but there is still zero transparency and you just need to roll with whatever changes. I can't imagine doing that kind of work anymore. [1] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases

asveikau 7mo ago
This seems to be about injecting your own code into a running process and then modifying its behavior. The kinds of things that would break from build to build are VERY DIFFERENT from what typical applications would face.
- chroma_zone 7mo ago
  A lot of basic tweaks to windows behavior require those types of unstable hacks. The point is that developers or users who want to modify their system are forced into sketchy software.

KingOfCoders 7mo ago

Windhawk vertical task bar is a game changer for me.

jccx70 7mo ago

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1970-01-01 7mo ago

What's old is new again. https://web.archive.org/web/20151104081734/http://www.xpize.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151104081734/http://www.xpize....

Grom_PE 7mo ago

Modding Windows is akin to building a sand castle. It might be fun, beautiful, but very much impermanent. You can expect it to be washed off with the next Windows update. I've done it before on Windows 7. Resized system clock, resized start menu button, removed "Terminate batch job (Y/N)?" warning in cmd, etc. Most annoying is that VirtualBox stops working with the patched uxtheme.dll. ... Life on Linux is great. My modifications stick for as long as I want. Permanently if I get my patches upstream.

1718627440 7mo ago
> You can expect it to be washed off with the next Windows update. You can just run Windows in a VM and reset the VM to an older state when Microsoft messes up your settings again.

chankstein38 7mo ago

Man back in the XP days we used to just edit registry entries responsible for these things and use reshack to open binaries for modification.

attentive 7mo ago

"Imagine moving the taskbar" - the state of 2026 windows is pathetic.

specproc 7mo ago

> Windows enthusiast communities Is this some sort of fetish thing?

s3graham 7mo ago

I used to be more of a fetishist, and still use cmd on Windows. My modding contribution from long ago: https://github.com/sgraham/cmdEx https://github.com/sgraham/cmdEx

dmitrygr 7mo ago

Windows UI customization used to be a thing Stardock did with products like "WindowBlinds". Googling around, it seems it still exists and even supports windows 11...wow

klooney 7mo ago

Is Litestep still around? You used to be able to sub out the windows shell...

eviks 7mo ago

> This is awesome. It’s the kind of power that, philosophically, should be available to all PC users out of the box. Oh, brother, preach (and not only PC, where is Mac Airhawk?)! But the OS devils won't be affected! Windhawk is indeed a savior in making some of the UI crimes committed with Windows 11 upgrade at least palatable > A locked-down operating system — like Microsoft’s Windows RT — wouldn’t allow you to do anything like this. But it could! It could allow native styling just like a windhak mod does, without the security concerns! There is no inherent contradiction here So this is just defeatist, especially given the fact they kill useful features they've already delivered: > Microsoft can never deliver every feature people want as part of the Windows operating system. It’s just not possible. So, let it deliver the possible 80%? Would still be a huge improvement!

Kiboneu 7mo ago

My first introduction to patching a blob by hand, was from replacing the winxp taskbar “start” string with my name. Thankfully my name was shorter than the original string. Eventually I just installed linux.

jamesnorden 7mo ago

It's so dumb that with Windows you need so many software just to undo Microsoft's "innovations" and make it somewhat usable. I finally switched all of my personal Machines over to Linux a few months back, since I felt the gaming situation was finally good enough, and I'm never looking back.

hulitu 7mo ago

> But many of them aren’t written by the core developer. Do you trust them? Are you equipped to audit their security? Do you want to trust that these mods will behave as advertised and not cause problems? We shall ask this question for Windows itself, given its past record.