Making Windows 11 Feel a Little More Familiar with PowerShell

Change is good, but sometimes a little familiarity is good too.

Windows 11 introduces a cleaner interface and a number of useful changes, but some long-time Windows users still prefer a few parts of the Windows 10 experience.

Rather than replacing the Windows shell or using a large “debloat” script, I wanted to see how far I could get with a small, conservative PowerShell toolkit focused on three things:

• restore classic Notepad
• show existing notification-area icons
• make Start cleaner and more familiar

The result is a small project called Win11 Classic Experience.

1. Restoring classic Notepad

The first objective was simple: keep the lightweight classic Notepad experience.

The script:

• verifies that the classic Windows Notepad capability is installed
• installs it if required
• removes the modern Microsoft.WindowsNotepad package
• removes the provisioned package where present
• suppresses the classic Notepad upgrade banner

There is also a safety gate: the modern package is not removed unless classic Notepad is confirmed as installed first.

One thing I deliberately avoided was creating a watchdog or scheduled task that constantly fights Windows servicing. If a future Windows update reintroduces the modern app, the script can simply be rerun.

2. Showing existing tray icons

Windows 11 tends to place many notification icons into the overflow area.

The approach here is straightforward:

$RegistryPath = 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings'
$Name = 'IsPromoted'
$Value = '1'

Get-ChildItem -Path $RegistryPath -Recurse | ForEach-Object {
    New-ItemProperty `
        -Path $_.PSPath `
        -Name $Name `
        -Value $Value `
        -PropertyType DWORD `
        -Force
}

This promotes the notification icons already known to the current Windows profile.

The important limitation is that new applications may create new tray entries later, so the feature may need to be rerun after additional applications are installed.

3. Making Start a little more familiar

Windows 11 cannot genuinely be turned back into the Windows 10 Start menu without replacing or extending the shell.

That was outside the scope of this project.

Instead, I used native Windows settings to make Start more application-focused:

Start_Layout = 1

ShowAllPinsList = 1

Start_IrisRecommendations = 0

In practical terms, this means:

• use More pins
• show all pins by default where supported
• reduce recommendation content

It is still Windows 11 Start, just a little cleaner and less recommendation-heavy.

Conservative by design

The important part of this project is probably what it doesn't do.

It does not:

• disable Microsoft Defender
• disable Windows Update
• weaken UAC
• remove Microsoft Store
• remove Edge
• mass-remove inbox applications
• install third-party shell replacements
• apply dozens of undocumented registry tweaks

The goal is not to produce an unsupported or heavily modified Windows build.

The goal is simply to restore a few familiar behaviours.

Audit before apply

The toolkit includes both audit and apply modes.

To review the current state:

.\Win11-Classic-Experience.ps1 -Mode Audit

To apply the changes:

.\Win11-Classic-Experience.ps1 -Mode Apply -RestartExplorer

Individual features can also be applied independently.

Why build this?

For me, this is less about resisting change and more about removing small pieces of friction.

A familiar desktop can be useful, particularly for people who spend a lot of time administering systems and want the operating system itself to stay predictable.

The project is available on GitHub:

Win11 Classic Experience

https://github.com/rakeshranderia/win11-classic-experience