5 steps I take to make Home windows 11 trendy and constant

The discharge of

Windows 11
in 2021 marked a turning level in Microsoft’s consideration to person interface design. With a renewed funding in its Fluent Design UI system, the corporate started the method of modernizing its decades-old flagship PC working system. This means of visible rejuvenation is an ongoing improvement, and in my view, there’s nonetheless fairly a bit of labor that must be achieved to shine up some tough edges that proceed to persist.

As a giant tech big,

Microsoft’s
efforts are moderately glacial. Fortunately, a passionate neighborhood of builders, Home windows fans, and lovers of excellent person interface design have come collectively to rectify among the extra apparent visible inconsistencies discovered all through the OS. Paired with some minor settings changes, it is doable to have Home windows 11 wanting its best possible. Listed here are 5 steps I all the time take to modernize the look of each PC I personally arrange.

1

Allow mild mode

Gentle themes look slicker and extra trendy than darkish themes

For essentially the most half, I am a giant fan of darkish mode interfaces. They’re simpler on the eyes, they permit for blur and transparency results to shine, and, merely put, they give the impression of being cool. Nevertheless, there isn’t any denying that mild mode is slick in its personal proper: for my cash, Home windows 11’s mild mode manages to supply a way of modernity that its darkish mode counterpart does not fairly match as much as.

By way of consistency, Microsoft nonetheless hasn’t delivered a top-to-bottom implementation of darkish mode throughout all of Home windows. Many legacy Win32 components of the system stay light-themed, although there are third-party instruments on the market (such as StartAllBack) that may brute-force darkish mode throughout extra floor components.

To allow mild mode in your Home windows 11 PC, observe these steps:

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Navigate to Personalization > Shade > Select your mode.
3. Click on or faucet on the drop-down menu, and choose Gentle from the checklist of accessible choices.

Associated

5 apps I use to make Windows Search more like macOS Spotlight

In comparison with Highlight on macOS, Home windows Search leaves one thing to be desired — listed here are 5 apps that may supercharge Home windows 11’s search prowess.

2

Obtain MicaForEveryone

Make old-school Win32 title bars pop

A few years again, Microsoft rolled out a Home windows 11 replace that positioned a really refined Mica blur onto the title bar of basic Win32 program home windows. Sadly, the impact is hardly noticeable, and it actually does not match up with the Mica-rich app surfaces discovered on modernized Home windows system apps.

The answer to this explicit inconsistency is the wonderful MicaForEveryone instrument, which is a free obtain over on GitHub. The app is light-weight, serving the only real function of including in a richer Mica impact throughout Win32 title bar surfaces. As an added bonus, the instrument helps you to swap over to different blur kinds — particularly Microsoft’s personal translucent Acrylic material.

Associated

5 retro Windows games that will bring you right back to 2007

Microsoft has bundled in some downright iconic PC video games into Home windows all through the years – listed here are 5 of my all-time favorites.

3

Obtain TranslucentTB

Make the system taskbar extra Home windows 7-esque

TrnaslucentTB is one other free and light-weight PC app that goes a great distance in enhancing the visible design and consistency of Home windows. The app’s choices are accessible through a System Tray shortcut icon, with choices to show the taskbar fully clear, translucent, or someplace in between. As with MicaforEveryone, there’s an choice to allow an Acrylic-style taskbar blur, which is my private favourite choice.

Paradoxically, enabling an Acrylic Home windows taskbar makes the OS look much more just like the a lot older

Windows 7 with its Aero theming
. The way in which I see it, Home windows 7’s taskbar has survived the take a look at of time, and stays extremely trendy and constant even in 2025. Acylic is not an ideal match, but it surely’s shut sufficient so as to add somewhat further aptitude to the OS as a complete.

Associated

5 retro Windows apps that are still alive and well in 2025

These common Home windows packages first hit the PC scene within the Nineties and early 2000s, and so they’re nonetheless very a lot round at the moment.

4

Domesticate Fluent Apps

The Microsoft Retailer is dwelling to many fabulous Fluent experiences

Pocket-lint / Recordsdata / FluentWeather / Wino Mail

Lots of Microsoft’s personal native Home windows apps blatantly misappropriate the corporate’s Fluent Design interface pointers, and that is in the event that they assist Fluent styling to start with. Fortunately, there is a rising variety of apps accessible on the Microsoft Retailer that I affectionately seek advice from as “Fluent Apps.” These apps are trendy, native-feeling, and put Microsoft’s efforts to disgrace. I’ve written up a whole checklist of a few of

my all-time favorite Fluent Apps
, however some standouts embrace:

Associated

The 6 steps I take to make Windows 11 look and feel more like macOS

With out an excessive amount of work, you possibly can arrange any Home windows 11 PC to operate extra like an Apple Mac — this is how.

5

Obtain Rectify11

Rectify Microsoft’s inconsistent accent coloration theming

Throughout the Settings app, Microsoft means that you can decide a system accent coloration, which exhibits up throughout a few of Home windows 11’s person interface surfaces. Because it at the moment stands, nonetheless, many elements of the OS nonetheless do not respect this accenting system, together with context menus in File Explorer, the cursor highlighting impact for choosing information and folders, and the textual content highlighting instrument for renaming desktop icons.

Rectify11 is a complete instrument that makes it simple to tweak a number of facets of Home windows 11, with choices to tweak icons, deliver again desktop Devices, remaster person avatars, and extra. For the needs of enhancing the consistency throughout the system, I take advantage of Rectify11 to normalize the accent colorization throughout legacy Win32 surfaces of the OS.

Associated

This third-party tool brings Aero Peek back to Windows 11

Aero Peek is a great tool that allows you to look at your desktop with a hover – Microsoft eliminated the function in Home windows 11, however you possibly can deliver it again.