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Nick Lewis is an editor at How-To Geek. He has been using computers for 20 years — tinkering with everything from the UI to the Windows registry to device firmware. Before How-To Geek, he used Python and C++ as a freelance programmer. In college, Nick made extensive use of Fortran while pursuing a physics degree.

Nick’s love of tinkering with computers extends beyond work. He has been running video game servers from home for more than 10 years using Windows, Ubuntu, or Raspberry Pi OS. He also uses Proxmox to self-host a variety of services, including a Jellyfin Media Server, an Airsonic music server, a handful of game servers, NextCloud, and two Windows virtual machines.

He enjoys DIY projects, especially if they involve technology. He regularly repairs and repurposes old computers and hardware for whatever new project is at hand. He has designed crossovers for homemade speakers all the way from the basic design to the PCB.

Nick enjoys the outdoors. When he isn’t working on a computer or DIY project, he is most likely to be found camping, backpacking, or canoeing.

The Windows taskbar has been largely unchanged sinc he days of Windows 95, and features a disappointing number of customization options. Worse yet, since Windows 11 was introduced, you don’t even get many useful right-click options on the taskbar anymore.

If you’re willing to use a third-party program, however, you can make the taskbar look and act like almost anything you want.

The taskbar got worse between Windows 10 and Windows 11

Windows 10’s taskbar was actually more customizable than Windows 11.

Above and beyond moving the Start button to the middle of the taskbar—a strange choice after it had spent decades on the left—Microsoft also removed several practical options.

For example, right-clicking the Windows 10 taskbar allowed you to cascade all of your open windows into a neat pile. If you’d happened to lose one off the edge of your screen (which is an uncommon but very annoying problem), it made it extremely easy to move it back into the center of your screen.

Additionally, Windows 10 let you position the taskbar along the vertical edges of your screen, which was great if you had an ultrawide monitor. Instead of using up a huge slice along the bottom, you would only use up a relatively small sliver along the left-hand side of your screen.

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Between the loss of practical options and customization choices, the taskbar in Windows 11 is just one small example of some of the backwards steps Windows 11’s user interface took.

Windhawk brings dozens of customization options to the taskbar

There aren’t a ton of great ways to bring back the control options the taskbar used to feature, though the hotkey function built into PowerToys is a great alternative.

However, if you’re just looking to reclaim some of your ability to customize the taskbar, then Windhawk is a fantastic option.

Windhawk is a free and open-source utility that allows you to customize *most *aspects of the Windows user interface, including the Start Menu and taskbar.

You can *really *change how the taskbar looks, so dramatically that it wouldn’t even be recognizable as Windows, if you really want to.

Using Windhawk to change the taskbar

To replace your taskbar with Windhawk, first download the app from the official source, then install it.

Once that is done, click on the "Explore" tab towards the top, then search for** windhawk taskbar styler** and click "Details." Once you’re in the mod, click "Install."

Once that is installed, you can view multiple taskbar options, ranging from Windows Vista to things that resemble macOS. I think they’re all well done, but I’m partial to Lucent. Once you know which one you want, head to the Settings tab within the mod menu, then select it from the drop-down menu.

Once you’ve changed the appearance of the taskbar, Windhawk does have a few functional mods that change how the taskbar operates. Of those, my favorite is Taskbar Volume Control. It changes the taskbar so that when you scroll your mouse wheel, you turn the volume up or down.

If you’re someone with an ultrawide, you may want to check out Vertical Taskbar for Windows 11. It restores the ability to move the taskbar to the side of the screen.

If you want to disable any of these, all you need to do is head back to the Windhawk Home page and select "Disable". Since I frequently need to take screenshots with the default Windows user interface visible, I find myself doing that pretty frequently. If you want to remove them completely, just hit "Remove" instead.

What if Windhawk breaks with an update?

Rarely, major updates to Windows can tweak these sorts of user interface customizations, though I’ve only had it happen once before. If that should happen with the taskbar modifications, or any Windhawk modification in general, all you need to do is end the Windhawk task and Windows will reload the default user interface automatically.

Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open the Task Manager, search for Windhawk, select it, then click "End Task."

Alternatively, if you can actually open Windhawk—which may not be super easy depending on how things broke—you could just disable the mods instead.

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The taskbar isn’t the only thing Windhawk can change. If you’re willing to search through the available mods, Windhawk can be used to modify almost any aspect of the Windows user interface. I’m constantly tweaking one thing or another depending on how I’m feeling on any given day.

It doesn’t make Windows as flexible as Linux, but if you’re willing to pair Windhawk with something like Rainmeter, you can get pretty close.

LG UltraWide Curved Monitor

This spacious 34-inch ultrawide monitor gives you more than enough room for productivity work, watching movies, or playing games at your desk.