Below are some tricks I’ve run across to help Tweak Windows 11 to work the way you want it to (Like Win10 that is :)).

1. 1. Inital Setup of Windows 11 – the OOBE – (out of box experience) doesn’t provide you an option to setup the machine using local account & password. MS is forcing only to login with a Hotmail, outlook or msn account – this not ideal especially if you need to join your computer to a domain first. But there is an alternative to doing this:
      • • Turn on pc and wait for Windows 11 to show the OOBE – out of box experience – At any time DO NOT connect to your wireless first.
          • • If you do connect to internet, then best to do the following to disable the wi-fi adapter before continuing:
          • • Click SHIFT + F10 key
          • • at command prompt type: netsh int show int – will bring up list of network adapters. If connected is set by “Wi-Fi” or Ethernet, then use next command to disable it temporarily: Netsh int set int “Wi-Fi” disable (or “Ethernet” disable)
          • • Follow next step to get the option to setup a local account.

      • • Once at OOBE setup screen Do NOT click next; instead, hit the “Shift + F10 Key”.. this will open a command prompt window – black window.
      • • At the prompt type:  OOBE\BYPASSNRO – then hit enter.  The computer will reboot automatically. 
        • Alternatively, type at cmd prompt: Start ms-cxh:localonly  – This will prompt to create local account and jump straight into setting up profile and skip OOBE. 
        • After reboot, you can follow prompts along until you get to the “connect to wireless” page – Again Do not connect to any wifi at home/office. Instead click on: “I don’t have Internet” link at the bottom left of screen. Click NEXT.
      • • On Next Screen, Click on the “Limited Setup or Continue with Limited Setup”.
      • • From there it’ll ask you who is using the computer – just type: admin then set password
        • NOTE: In 2025, Microsoft is changing/removing the above command as an option to create local account.  Until they also remove this additional option, type in this command to initiate creation of local account: start ms-cxh:localonly.   This instructs Windows to bypass the online account prompt. 
        • After executing the command, the setup will refresh and you should now see the option to create a local account in the OOBE. 
      • • From there it’ll go through the paces to get you to a desktop where you can then connect to the internet and download windows updates and install your applications necessary. 
          • • Note if you disable either wi-fi or ethernet adapter from netsh command above, then open administrator command prompt and type: netsh int set int “Wi-Fi” enabled 

1. 1. Windows11 – Bloatware – Like Windows 10, Windows 11 also allows users to manually remove apps from the Settings or Control Panel. But if you want to quickly delete all bloatware from your system, you can try a new open-source app called ThisIsWin11. This app basically lets you customize advanced and basic features of the operating system and disable Windows 11 features like Microsoft Teams integration on the taskbar.
      The app currently comes with the following features:
      • • Basic settings: It allows you to quickly configure the basic settings of Windows 11.
      • • PumpedApp: You can check and optimize Windows 11 by making changes to the PowerThrottling.
      • • Bloatware: This will feature will allow you to remove the pre-installed Windows 11 apps.
          Quickly install apps using packages.
      • • PowerClicks: This allows you to automate Windows tasks using PowerShell scripts.
      • • Apparently, you can also use the app to automate tasks or run PowerShell scripts. At the same time, you can use it to install, uninstall or reinstall apps. You can even enable ultimate performance mode, which requires a change to Windows Registry.
          The tool is available on Github.

1. 1. Right-Click Menu Shortened list of options – Microsoft probably thought this was a good idea but in reality it’s more of a pain because the pictures are hard to remember what is what and you almost always need to click on the option to see more options :(.

1. 1. OneDrive (either version hangs) – This hang contributes to the Win11 Explorer shell hanging too – so best way to fix this is to run the onedrive.exe with /reset:
      • • C:\users\%userprofile%\appdata\local\microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset
      • • the OneDrive System tray icons will disappear while they reset to default settings. Then you can reopen by searching in Start menu.
      • • Another option discovered is to go to the Settings/Apps and remove the Windows 11 installed OneDrive version and then re-install the O365 OneDrive software.

1. 1. Library System folder has gone missing or been permanently deleted – this could be in 10 or 11 – but recent troubles with OneDrive and OD4B caused Documents folder to disappear and thus had to recreate it. Found commands below to fix this problem – create in batch file:
      • • @echo off
      • • taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
      • • timeout /t 2 /nobreak >nul
      • • if not exist “%UserProfile%\Documents” mkdir “%UserProfile%\Documents”
      • • reg add “HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders” /v “Personal” /t REG_SZ /d “C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents” /f
      • • reg add “HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders” /v “{f42ee2d3-909f-4907-8871-4c22fc0bf756}” /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%”\Documents” /f
      • • reg add “HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders” /v “Personal” /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%”\Documents” /f
      • • attrib +r -s -h “%USERPROFILE%\Documents” /S /D
      • • timeout /t 1 /nobreak >nul
      • • start explorer.exe

1. 1. After installing 7zip application that the right-click menu would hang every time you tried to use it. Reason is because 7zip adds to the menu and as a result Windows 11 Explorer hangs (one of the many reasons it hangs). The only way to fix the hang is remove 7zip and then perform the following command in Admin cmd prompt (or W11 Terminal).

1. 1. Restore Win10 Right-Click Menu:
      • • Type/paste this in the command prompt:
          • • reg.exe add “HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32” /f /ve
          • • User will need to logoff afterwards and back on to take effect. 🙂
          • • Afterwards the right-click menu looks like windows 10 again.
          • • Can now re-install 7zip application and it will show the new options in the menu.

1. 1. What’s new with the Start menu on Windows 11?
      Perhaps one of the most noticeable changes on Windows 11 is the new Start menu. The new menu has been designed to be a simple app launcher that embraces traditional icons ditching the Live Tiles design and follows the new design language with rounded corners and transparent materials.
      The new experience includes a search box at the top, a section for your pinned app, and recommendations. You can rearrange the icons in any way you like by dragging and dropping the icons. You can uninstall most apps from the context menu, and you can still access the list with all the apps.
      The “Recommended” section includes your recent files and recently installed apps, and while you cannot remove this section, you can prevent the Start menu from showing recent items.

1. 1. Are there any multitasking improvements on Windows 11?
      Yes, Windows 11 comes with several multitasking improvements, Snap layouts and Snap groups, Desktops, and multiple displays improvements.
      “Snap layouts” is a new menu that appears when hovering over the maximize button of any window, and it includes different layouts to snap windows on the screen. Once you select a layout and position, Snap assist will give you to continue snapping windows in the remaining space.
      “Snap groups” is also part of the Snap assist experience, and it allows you to switch back to the group of spanned windows from the Taskbar by hovering over an app that belongs to a group and clicking the group preview.
      On Windows 11, “Virtual Desktops” becomes “Desktops,” and it’s a feature that gives you the ability to create different virtual spaces to keep unrelated tasks separated, such as work, school, and gaming. (You can use this guide to learn more on how to get the most out of this feature.)
      The feature works the same way as in previous versions, but it’s been redesigned with an interface that now docks at the bottom of the screen, includes the ability to change the desktop background per desktop, and more.
      When you disconnect your laptop to an external display, all the applications on the secondary screen will now minimize automatically. Then when you reconnect the monitor, the apps will restore automatically to their original location by default to improve the experience when working with multiple displays.
      Finally, “Aero shake,” the ability to grab and shake a window to minimize all the other windows, now has its own setting on the “Multitasking” settings page.

1. 1. Disable Windows 11 Lock Screen (on first boot up) – When you start the PC, a screen comes before entering the password that goes away when you press any key. It serves no other purpose other than showing a beautiful picture and some extra info about it. Many people may find this screen an annoying extra step to access your PC. If you want to remove it to access the password screen directly, you can do so using the registry.
      Open up the Windows registry and enter the below location in the search bar at the top and press the Enter key.
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
      Here right-click on the Windows entry and select New > Key. Name this new key “Personalization”.
      Now select this new Personalization entry and right-click in the white space on the right, and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name this entry “NoLockScreen”.
      Afterward, double-click on the NoLockScreen entry and change its value from 0 to 1, and click OK
      That’s it, the next time you will start the PC you will directly see the password screen.

That’s all for now! Will update as come across more items.