[Tip] Restore Windows 10 Classic Taskbar in Windows 11 along with Classic Start Menu

If you are looking a way to restore Windows 10 style old classic Taskbar in Windows 11, this article will help you in bringing back classic Taskbar along with classic Start Menu in Windows 11 operating system. You’ll get fully functional classic Taskbar with all context menu options and uncombined program buttons with full text labels back in Windows 11.

Taskbar in Windows 11 comes with a completely revamped design. It now appears in the center of bottom screen area and that’s why its referred as Centered Taskbar. Microsoft has implemented a redesigned Taskbar in Windows 11 which has been developed from scratch. Since it’s a new piece of development, there are many limitations and restrictions present in Windows 11 Taskbar.

Limitations or Problems in Windows 11 Taskbar

Taskbar in Windows 11 is stuck at bottom position and you can’t move the Taskbar to change its location to other screen areas such as top, left or right. In fact, if you right-click on Taskbar, you get only one option “Taskbar settings” in the context menu which opens Taskbar settings page to customize icons appearance, etc. The settings page is also very limited and doesn’t provide advanced settings to customize Taskbar appearance.

All other classic options such as lock/unlock Taskbar, open Task Manager, show Desktop, arrange program windows, etc are missing in new Taskbar right-click menu. Since the new Taskbar can’t be unlocked, resizing the Taskbar is also no longer possible. Users are forced to use large sized Taskbar and they can’t reduce its size.

The program buttons are grouped/combined by default and don’t show text labels and there is no option provided to ungroup or uncombine program buttons and show text labels on Taskbar buttons. In previous Windows versions, there was an option available in Taskbar settings to select “Never combine” Taskbar buttons and show full text labels. Unfortunately, the option has been removed from Windows 11.

The new Taskbar also doesn’t support drag-n-drop functionality.

The classic functionality to add custom toolbars such as address, links, desktop, etc has also been removed from Taskbar.

Due to these limitations, many people don’t like the new Taskbar in Windows 11 and want to replace the new Taskbar with classic Taskbar which was present in Windows 10 operating system.

Benefits or Advantages of Classic Taskbar in Windows 11

Fortunately, there is a hidden secret Registry tweak to disable the new Taskbar and enable Windows 10 classic Taskbar in Windows 11 which we are going to share in this tutorial.

Once you apply this Registry tweak, you’ll get following benefits:

• It’ll restore Windows 10 style old classic Taskbar in Windows 11.
• You’ll get all options back in Taskbar context menu such as open Task Manager, Lock/unlock Taskbar, arrange program windows, etc.
• You’ll be able to move Taskbar to any screen area such as top, bottom, left and right.
• You’ll be able to resize the Taskbar.
• Drag-n-drop functionality will be back in Windows 11 Taskbar.
• You’ll be able to add custom toolbars such as Quick Launch toolbar to Taskbar in Windows 11.
• You’ll be able to force Windows 11 to NOT combine or group Taskbar buttons and always show full program labels on buttons.
• It’ll also restore classic context menu (right-click menu) in Windows 11.
• It’ll disable new command bar and enable Windows 10 style old classic Explorer with Ribbon toolbar in Windows 11.
• We’ll also restore classic Start Menu in Windows 11.

Restoring Windows 10 Classic Taskbar in Windows 11

Windows 11 contains the new modern Taskbar resources in a file Taskbar.dll present in C:\Windows\System32 folder. Windows 11 uses this DLL file to display new Taskbar to users.

Fortunately, Windows 11 still contains old or classic Windows 10 Taskbar code and functionality in the shell for legacy purposes. By default, the shell or Explorer has been designed to use the new redesigned Taskbar instead of old Taskbar but by implementing a secret Registry key mentioned below, we can force Windows 11 to always use Windows 10 Taskbar in place of the default built-in Taskbar along with classic Explorer and context menus.

FUN FACT: The secret Registry key is UndockingDisabled which was discovered in MVP groups and feedback hub when Microsoft started releasing testing builds of Windows 11. The same tweak went viral on Internet on September 02, 2021 to fix unresponsive Taskbar and Start Menu issue in Windows 11. Although it was a server-side issue which was quickly fixed by Microsoft team but many people already shared this Registry key as a workaround to restore classic Taskbar in Windows 11. Fortunately, the tweak still works in Windows 11.

Following screenshot shows Windows 10 Taskbar restored and working fine in Windows 11:

If you also want to restore Windows 10 Taskbar in Windows 11, following methods will help you:

We are providing both automatic (1-click solution) as well as manual detailed methods to bring back classic Taskbar in Windows 11. If you are looking an easy and quick way to restore classic Taskbar, the automatic solution is best for you. If you are an advanced or expert user and want to do the task manually, the manual solution is provided for you.

IMPORTANT: After restoring classic Taskbar, the new modern Start Menu and Explorer search box will stop working. To overcome this issue, you’ll need to follow solutions given under “Restore Classic Start Menu in Windows 11” and “Restore Classic Search box in Windows 11 Explorer” sections given at the end of the article.

METHOD 1: Automatically Restore Classic Taskbar in Windows 11

This is the fastest and easiest way to restore classic Taskbar in Windows 11 automatically. If you don’t want to modify registry yourself, we have created a ready-made Registry script file for you to apply the required Registry tweak automatically.

Download following ZIP file, extract it using 7-Zip or other file archive utilities and run the extracted Restore Classic Taskbar in Windows 11.reg file:

The script file will ask for confirmation, accept it. Restart your computer, sign out or restart Explorer using any method given in this article to take effects.

After restart, you’ll see Windows 10 classic Taskbar back in action in Windows 11.

The ZIP file also contains UNDO file to restore default settings i.e. restore new redesigned Taskbar in Windows 11 again.

METHOD 2: Manually Restore Classic Taskbar in Windows 11

If you are a pro user and want to enjoy the ride of restoring classic Taskbar in Windows 11, here are the required steps which are performed automatically by the above mentioned Registry script:

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type regedit in RUN box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

3. In right-side pane, right-click on empty area and select “New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value” option. Set the new DWORD name as UndockingDisabled and set its value to 1

4. Sign out or restart Windows Explorer using any method given in this article to take effects.

After restarting Explorer, you’ll get classic Taskbar back in Windows 11. Please note the classic Taskbar can take a few seconds in loading and showing all icons and buttons.

5. You’ll notice a few broken or not working icons present on the left-side of the Taskbar such as Cortana, Search and TaskView. You can remove those extra icons by modifying Registry. Long time back, we shared an exclusive article to get rid of these extra buttons from Windows 10 Taskbar. The same Registry tweaks still work in Windows 11.

Here are the required steps for your convenience:

Go to following key in Registry Editor:

In right-side pane, double-click on SearchboxTaskbarMode DWORD and change its value to 0

Now go to following key:

In right-side pane, double-click on ShowCortanaButton and ShowTaskViewButton DWORDs and change their values to 0

Again restart Explorer and all 3 icons Search, Cortana and TaskView will disappear from Taskbar.

6. If you also want to disable automatic grouping or combining of Taskbar buttons and want to show full text labels on program buttons, do as following:

This Registry tweak will also work in previous Windows versions such as Windows 10/8/7. Since Windows 11 doesn’t contain any UI to turn off Taskbar buttons grouping and show program labels, we’ll use the direct Registry tweak to do the same task indirectly.

Go to following key in Registry Editor:

Right-click on Policies key and select New -> Key option. It’ll create a new key under Policies key. Set the new key name as Explorer.

Select Explorer key and in right-side pane, right-click on empty area and select “New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value” option. Set the new DWORD name as NoTaskGrouping and set its value to 1

Restart Explorer and you’ll be able to see full program names and labels on Taskbar buttons. Also the Taskbar will no longer group or combine same program buttons.

Show All Icons in Taskbar Notification Area or System Tray

When you’ll enable or activate classic Taskbar in Windows 11 using above mentioned methods, you’ll notice that the clock and other icons such as volume, network, etc are hidden in Taskbar notification area or system tray.

Following steps will help you in showing all icons in Taskbar notification area:

1. Long time back in 2011, we posted an exclusive tutorial to create a direct shortcut to open customize notification area icons window. Fortunately that shortcut still works in Windows 11.

Since Windows 11 doesn’t allow users to show all icons and hide/remove icons in Taskbar notification area directly, we’ll use that old shortcut command to show all missing icons in Windows 11 Taskbar.

You’ll find the tutorial at following link:

Create Direct Shortcut for “Notification Area Icons” in Windows Vista and Later

You can download a ready-made shortcut from the above mentioned article or use following command in RUN dialog box:

It’ll open classic Notification Area Icons customization window.

2. Now select “Always show all icons and notifications on the Taskbar” checkbox and it’ll immediately enable all icons in system tray.

3. Now click on “Turn system icons on or off” link given at the bottom of the window.

On the next window, you can enable other system icons such as Clock, Volume, Network, Power, Action Center, etc by selecting ON option from the drop-down boxes given next to the icon names.

Click on OK button and you’ll get all missing icons back in classic Taskbar.

Restore Classic Start Menu in Windows 11

There is one major side effect or drawback in restoring classic Taskbar in Windows 11 which is the new redesigned Start Menu will stop working. If you click on Start button or press WINDOWS key, nothing will happen, the Start Menu will not appear on screen.

Don’t worry! That’s not as issue. You can fix the issue by bringing back classic Start Menu as well using following article:

[Tip] Restore Old Classic Start Menu in Windows 11

Once you follow the steps given in above mentioned article, it’ll restore old classic Start Menu in Windows 11.

Now you are ready to enjoy classic Taskbar and classic Start Menu in Windows 11.

Restore Classic Search Box in Windows 11 Explorer

Restoring classic Taskbar also breaks the Search box in Windows Explorer. The search box gets stuck or not responding. Nothing happens if you try to click inside the search box. It just becomes not-clickable.

We also have a fix for this issue. 2 years back, we posted a solution for similar problem present in Windows 10 Explorer and fortunately the same solution works in Windows 11 too.

You can restore classic Search box in Windows 11 Explorer with the help of following tutorial:

Fix Broken Search Box in Windows 11 File Explorer After Applying UndockingDisabled Tweak

The solution given in above article will help you in bringing back classic Search box in Windows 11 Explorer and the search box will start working fine again.

PS: When you restore classic Taskbar, it also restores classic context menu (right-click menu) and classic Explorer with ribbon toolbar in Windows 11.

Also Check:

[Tip] Restore Old Classic Context Menu (Right-Click Menu) in Windows 11

[Tip] Disable Command Bar and Restore Ribbon Toolbar in Windows 11 Explorer