I lastly discovered a greater Home windows 11 Begin Menu

From the discharge of Windows 95 and onward, the Begin Menu has been a flagship aspect of the PC person expertise. To this very day, it serves as a centralized location for program launching, file looking out, account administration, and extra. Whereas not practically as flashy in 2025 because it was in 1995, the Start Menu stays a downright iconic little bit of person interface design that has definitely endured by means of the ages.

In fact, as with different working system UI parts, the Begin Menu’s design has developed tremendously over time. Most just lately, Microsoft has refreshed the menu interface with a subtly tweaked design that is starting to roll out now to Home windows 11 computer systems throughout the globe. Personally, I’m a fan of this redesigned Begin Menu — I discover it strikes a stable sufficient steadiness between comfort, customizability, and ease.

The jury remains to be out whether or not customers will take kindly to Windows 11’s up to date Begin Menu expertise as soon as it has been totally rolled out, or whether or not it will be criticized to the identical diploma because the previous design was. If you find yourself dissatisfied with the refresh upon updating your PC, then there is no want to fret: that is Home windows we’re speaking about, and so there’s nothing on the platform-level stopping you from testing any variety of third-party menu alternative functions.

Open-Shell bends and conforms to your preferences

Off the highest of my head, a couple of well-liked third-party Start Menu replacement programs spring to thoughts, together with Start11, StartAllBack, ExplorerPatcher, and RetroBar. These apps are all wonderful in their very own proper, although solely the latter two fall beneath the class of being free and open-source (FOSS). For me, there’s one different FOSS Begin Menu alternative app for Home windows 11 that stands out above the remaining, and it is known as Open-Shell.

Open-Shell provides three distinct Begin Menu layouts to select from, starting from Basic fashion (which emulates Home windows 9x), Home windows 7 fashion (which emulates Home windows Vista and seven), and Basic with two columns (which takes a hybrid strategy). Every possibility leans into its respective design inspiration gracefully, and adjustments happen instantly with out the necessity for a reboot.

After you have an Open-Shell-powered Begin Menu up and working, it is off to the races with customization. A variety of fundamental and extra superior configuration choices can be found to dig into, along with skins and various Begin button designs for some added personalization. It is easy to regulate the visibility of the search field, modify the kinds of apps that seem on-screen, and even configure methods to set off Open Shell to launch.

Past the Begin Menu itself, Open-Shell additionally provides a few extra customization instruments not out there in vanilla Windows 11, regarding the system taskbar and to the File Explorer. Taskbar choices embody the flexibility to regulate dimension and opacity, whereas a toolbar and standing bar can each be enabled inside File Explorer.

On the entire, Open-Shell is a superb alternative for anybody trying to substitute the inventory Home windows 11 Begin Menu with one thing extra customizable and conventional. As a FOSS program, it does not price a penny and its supply code is freely out there to peruse, although this does come at the price of some UI polish when in comparison with different market options.