Rectify11 Improving upon the Windows 11 experience | Hacker News Reader

Rectify11 Improving upon the Windows 11 experience

rectify11.net

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Not going to install something that seems so vague, but I do use ExplorerPatcher [1] on my Windows 11 machines to basically re-create Windows 10 UI and fix all of the annoyances I have with Windows 11. I've got the old right click menu, the old task bar, the old alt-tab interface, pretty much the whole thing. Only reason I use Windows 11 over Windows 10 is because Windows 11 seems to handle my triple monitor setup better, especially when waking up from sleep.

[1] - https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

Thanks. I keep my task bar on the left so that's the big thing keeping me in win 10.

You can have taskbar on left in Windows 11 as well.

Not without 3rd-party-tools.

There's a built-in option to align buttons center or left. No third-party tools necessary, unless you want something different than left or center. Or is this in reference to the entire bar? If so, was that possible in Win 10?

Yes, in all Windows version starting with probably 95 and until 11, you could put your start bar on any edge of the screen.

Yes, I move the whole taskbar to the left edge of the screen. Screens are wide, so I can dedicate like 1.5 inches of the left edge of the screen to just the taskbar with full text labels (I speak English, not pictogram) stacked one on top of the other, no combining. It's such a nice workflow I'm surprised it didn't become common when 16x9 screens became dominant.

Yeah, I mean a fully vertical taskbar. It’s more efficient for widescreen monitors, as you waste less horizontal space.

You're misunderstanding. We like the taskbar along the left (vertical) edge, not the bottom (horizonal) edge. You're thinking of alignment.

AFAIK it doesn’t support that. The only tool I know that does is proprietary (but cheap) and closed source: StartAllBack https://www.startallback.com/

Thank you for sharing this!!

Doing this Monday when I get back into the office.

Plus for $5, I find it quite cheap!

Just in case you hadn’t seen sibling, ExplorerPatcher also seems to support it, just for some reason they don’t advertise it ;)

It does support that. I'm using it like that on two machines.

interesting, I couldn’t find it under any of the feature descriptions.

edit: Found it inside github issues, weird to omit this from the feature list.

Back then, I chose SAB specifically because of this feature.

I installed Explorer Patcher on my non-technical sibling's computer after they upgraded to 11 and discovered the atrocity that's 11's taskbar. The main problem with Explorer Patcher is that it will sometimes completely break after a (forced) Windows update, causing your Desktop/Taskbar/everything to not display after a login. 2-3 times now I've had to remote into the box after having it boot in safe mode with networking, uninstall Explorer Patcher, verify that it was causing the problem, then reinstall the latest version. Rather annoying, but said sibling (understandably) hates the new taskbar.

Just curious: does Alt+Tab work for you?

This website does a very poor job at describing what it is, what it does, how it does it, etc. Even after googling, there isn't much information about the full extend of what changes this does to Win11.

Again with software sites that have no screenshots or say what the Thing does, really.

I've been in their Discord server for a while, so feel free to ask any questions. They used to have Rectify11 and several other Windows mods in one server, but Rectify11 has since been changed to a Rectify11-specific server[1], and the then-current server was renamed to the Windows Mod Hub[2], which I'd also recommend checking out.

[1]: https://discord.gg/sDRcjjaS5a

[2]: https://discord.gg/sDRcjjaS5a

Edit: yes, the site does a very poor job of explaining what it does. I'm not gonna make excuses for them, but here's what it does: it combines a bunch of other software, stuff like ExplorerPatcher, and adds some more on top, to "rectify" Windows 11 to be more consistent, and overall a better experience.

The source code is available here: https://github.com/Rectify11/Installer

Both discord links are the same

Windows 11 gives weird-ass macOS clone energy combined with designer’s ineffable urge to add MORE PADDING everywhere. I don’t get it and I don’t want to upgrade. I’m glad I can play my PC games on a Linux handheld.

> MORE PADDING everywhere

It's so ridiculous. You ever wanted Explorer's "details" file list view to have horizontal blank space between rows so rather than selecting the nearest item you could just click through the list into a blank void and select nothing? Yeah, that's what the default setting is now. For a list view. It's like making up unusable space between cells in Excel for no reason.

The upcoming Office redesign is even worse

Luckily I haven’t used Microsoft Office since 2008. Google Docs gets worse at a much slower rate.

No screenshots and only the most brief explanation of what it provides.

"Better UI"

I tried to click on this - after all, there's a hand pointer when I hover - and it's not clickable. Well, this team clearly knows way too little to be taking over my desktop's UI.

Windows 11 is comically bad.

I've used every Windows as a developer since at least XP, and 11 is hands down the worst. Scroll bars that auto hide, and are only a few pixels wide. God awful web search in the start menu. Taskbar tabs are now forced into icon mode. A UI that copycats Macos, until you actually click something and find a UI element from Windows vista. Microsoft Edge blowing out my CPU every few days with a mandatory update. Just do yourself a favor folks and don't use Windows anymore if you can possibly help it. Stick to Windows 10 or consider Debian.

You're spreading misinformation and I'm unsure why.

- Scrollbars auto-hiding can easily be disabled from Modern UI settings -> Accessibility

- You aren't using the web search in the start menu correctly; it's like trying to use a Google Mini speaker to write an essay; yeah it'll work but good luck. You know how to use a browser; do that instead of complaining about something that you aren't using as-intended.

- Afaik taskbar can be ungrouped now; it's time to catch-up to 2023 :p

- Great artist copy; macOS is good. Get over it. I doubt they copied any kind of style from it, but citing this as a downside is silly.

- Microsoft Edge is worlds more efficient than Chrome or Firefox and I can personally vouch for this on the latest 11 stable and insider builds. If it's the update process with Edge that's taking up CPU... what is the issue? Updating files takes CPU, RAM, and HDD resources. Windows Update takes resources. Updating Firefox takes resources. Updating iOS or Android, as you may have guessed it by now, takes resources :p Edge updates for security reasons usually.

Debian flat-out sucks in 2023 and that seals that you're only for some kind of bad-intent or are incredibly naive. You may as well recommend Gentoo or Arch Linux for people coming from Windows 11 as those are just as-bad recommendations. People use Windows because it works. Windows 11 works. What Linux distros work? Ubuntu, and to a lesser-extent Mint. Anything else can be discovered over-time.

> Scrollbars auto-hiding can easily be disabled from Modern UI settings -> Accessibility

OK, and how do you change them so they are more than a few pixels wide? the width is literally 1/3 of Windows 10

> You aren't using the web search in the start menu correctly; it's like trying to use a Google Mini speaker to write an essay; yeah it'll work but good luck. You know how to use a browser; do that instead of complaining about something that you aren't using as-intended.

no. the point is not that the start web search is bad, its that IT EXISTS. I dont want to web search in the start menu EVER.

> Afaik taskbar can be ungrouped now; it's time to catch-up to 2023 :p

you are incorrect.

> Microsoft Edge is worlds more efficient than Chrome or Firefox and I can personally vouch for this on the latest 11 stable and insider builds.

even if thats true, I dont care. I DON'T want edge, and I DEFINITELY dont want forced updates, and I DEFINITELY dont want the uninstall option for it to be grayed out in the settings app, as is the current situation.

> Debian flat-out sucks in 2023 and that seals that you're only for some kind of bad-intent or are incredibly naive.

I pay for a Debian Digital Ocean droplet every month, because it works and gets the job done. please take your terrible takes elsewhere.

> OK, and how do you change them so they are more than a few pixels wide? the width is literally 1/3 of Windows 10

Not sure

> you are incorrect.

https://www.howtogeek.com/894996/windows-11-will-finally-let...

> even if thats true, I dont care. I DON'T want edge, and I DEFINITELY dont want forced updates, and I DEFINITELY dont want the uninstall option for it to be grayed out in the settings app, as is the current situation.

C:\"Program Files (x86)"\Microsoft\Edge\Application*\Installer\setup.exe --uninstall --system-level --verbose-logging --force-uninstall

You're welcome :p I found that command months ago instead of just complaining about Edge existing.

> Debian flat-out sucks in 2023

What? How?

That may have been a hot take on my part, but what makes Debian worthwhile over Ubuntu aside from ideology?

The average person switching from Windows to Linux wants something that works. My general impression is:

- Anything other than Ubuntu and Mint requires involvement with 3rd-party repos for comparable multimedia playback

- Ubuntu has the largest userbase, and thus the largest access to easy tech support; a beginner isn't going to bust out Terminal and go straight to Arch wiki

- Because Ubuntu has the largest userbase, software is more tested on it; check the requirements for most games on Steam and most of them mention Ubuntu, or SteamOS; nothing else

- I remember years ago Debian having some confusion with different images and firmware. I don't exactly remember the problem (maybe missing firmware for netinstall?), but this wasn't an issue with Ubuntu that includes most of the stuff on-disc.

Debian feels like one of those barely-heard of distros. When I think mainstream distros for desktop, it's Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE. For server, it's Ubuntu, RHEL, or SUSE. Arch Linux, Gentoo, Rhino, Cachy (or whatever it's called), Clear Linux, and Debian are distros to use if you have a known reason that they benefit your use case, after trying it from mainstream distros.

I wouldn't recommend Windows users to switch to any of those because of the lower user-base, and that because those distros are more technical there's also that air of harsh discussions and entitlement (Arch forums is terrible with this; RTFM). I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want my recommendation to be for anti-social entitled pricks who think they know better with their obscure distro :p If people want to go that way on their own, go for it!

> That may have been a hot take on my part, but what makes Debian worthwhile over Ubuntu aside from ideology?

I think they're very close these days but to me: Stability, I say this using Ubuntu 22.04 but to say Debian 'sucks' is a big stretch given how similar they are now

Windows 10 to Windows 11 is a disaster, nobody wants it, it's forced on most people, at my workplace people are avoiding it, Debian on the other hand has been mostly smooth sailing for like 10 years now

>Anything other than Ubuntu and Mint requires involvement with 3rd-party repos for comparable multimedia playback

Don't most people use Youtube and Spotify etc these days? If someone wants to break out the Mp3's they just install VLC.

> I remember years ago Debian having some confusion with different images and firmware

You'll be happy to know this is fixed, Debian's latest release now includes non-free firmware in the installer:

https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2023/2023...

Starting with this release, official images include firmware packages from main and non-free-firmware, along with metadata to configure the installed system accordingly. Our installation guide has been updated accordingly.

--- Debian 12 or Ubuntu 22.04 you can't really go wrong imo

There's some other stuff I want to say but I must sleep! thanks!

>macOS is good

You can't be possibly more wrong here, mate. macOS is an absolute garbage. Always was.

And Windows 11 tries to mimic that but fortunately fails at that too.

Edit: add reddit spacing

Yeah ok; everyone using it in business and multimedia must just like making their life harder; I forgot Linux was the greatest even though it's not notable outside of servers :p

>everyone using it in business and multimedia must just like making their life harder

Nah, they just either don't know any better or just don't care. I think it is a mix of both.

>I forgot Linux was the greatest

You can't forgot what you didn't know, mate :) Linux is for servers, it has no place on desktop. All those "The [Current Year] is a year of Linux on the desktop!" articles can attest that.

Best argument ever: "Stop complaining, you are using it wrong!". Parent paid by MS for sure.

The problem with the web search in the task bar or start menu is that it's there at all, giving web results when you searched for a document or app you don't remember the name of, or the @&%$ place they moved some setting to since it's not in Settings and you can't find any normal menu path to it.

Saying "Debian sucks" in a ui context without saying which desktop, and holding up Ubuntu as good, seals that your comment has less value or substance than the one you're critiquing.

I’ve used every version of Windows as a developer since 3.11 (was an DOS developer before that) and Windows 11 is good enough. I don’t actually directly interact with the OS all that often and when I do it’s to launch something which I typically do by typing alt-1, alt-2, etc.. for taskbar icons or I press the start button and type the first two or three letters of the app name and hit enter.

I’m also fine with with most Linux distros and macOS. Operating systems feel like a solved problem. They have mostly been good enough for the past decade or two.

> Windows 11 is good enough

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Having used literally every Microsoft operating system aside Xenix (even their portable OSs) I’ve come to notice that Microsoft OSs are like Star Trek movies, they’re generally only released well 50% of the time.

The worst offender imho is "smooth scroll" (better called delayed scroll, forced to watch the animation) that can't be disabled in several included applications, such as notepad.

Unbearable.

This website would greatly benefit from screenshots

Closed-source, using Discord, and the air of "we know better than paid Microsoft UX". No thanks.

It's likely disguised malware and/or spyware with pretty wrapping paper.

Not that you're wrong about any of that, but I'm pretty sure the bird who's had three dozen concussions from ramming my bay window every couple weeks knows better than Microsoft UX.

How is it closed source? The source code is literally on github: https://github.com/Rectify11/Installer

Looks like it's open source: https://github.com/Rectify11/Installer

Says so on the FAQs page of the (terrible) website as well.

The fact that Microsoft can’t get their story together for their most popular product is comical. A new UI at every release and no cohesive experience.

macOS on the other hand has stayed virtually unchanged for 22 years. If you look at the desktop and Finder of macOS 10.1 you’ll find little has changed. This is especially since 10.5 in 2007, when the UI essentially fossilized (for better or for worse)

As an interested party who has been using classic Start and explorerpatcher on LTSC or server for years to make Windows even slightly less miserable, this site tells me only barely more than nothing.

Why not just link to the discord if that's where stuff lives. That being a separate issue, but still.

Does this make any difference to the new "Settings" UI which infuriatingly replaced about 50% of the old Control Panel in Windows 10?

In W10 I'm never sure if I should open the control panel or the Settings "app", the latter being ludicrously bad and a monumental step backwards in UX.

I seem to remember W10 destroying the WiFi networks control pane as well and replacing it with a rage-inducing full-height sidebar which would permanently auto-close as soon as you clicked away from it (e.g. to copy a WiFi password from your password manager).

I have no confidence this is useful or even safe to run, seeing as the website has at least three <head> tags and two <title> tags.

Do people not know how to write proper HTML anymore?

Pass. No screenshot, no information, no explanation. WHY would I even try software without this information?

Win 10 LTSC 2021 still has many years of support. I'm just gonna keep using that until the next good windows LTSC version (maybe windows 12 LTSC or whatever) replaces it.

It's a bit of a tall order to say that MetroUI and fluent icons and design are a "Better UI"...

Directory Opus does a great job improving the Windows 11 experience too.

No info about what it is

Reply on news.ycombinator.com