Brief Summary
This video provides a comprehensive guide to using Windhawk, a Windows tweaking application known for its intuitive design, community-driven approach, and open-source mods. The video covers downloading and navigating the app, installing and managing mods, and highlights some of the best mods available, categorized by type, to customize the Windows 11 experience.
- Downloading and installing Windhawk
- Navigating the user interface
- Installing and managing mods
- Best mods for taskbar, start menu, UI, file explorer, and multi-monitor setups
Intro
Windhawk is a Windows tweaking application known for its intuitive design, community-driven approach, and open-source mods. The video will cover everything from downloading the application to the UI, the best mods available, and managing the mods. Chapters are categorized by mod type.
Disclaimer
If you're already familiar with the Windhawk app, you can skip to the part of the video where a comprehensive list of all the best mods available in this app is covered. The basics will be covered beforehand.
How to Download
To download the Windhawk app, go to the Windhawk website. The website highlights the application's stability, performance, ease of use, and the transparency of its mods through open-source code. Clicking the download button provides an .exe file to download and run, after which you'll be greeted to the main menu.
The Interface
The homepage displays installed mods and featured mods from the explore page. The explore page lists all available mods for installation. Mods have star ratings and download counts. A search box and filters are available. The settings and about tabs contain standard information, with default settings recommended for most users.
Installing Mods and Mod Pages
Clicking on a mod in the explore page takes you to its specific page, where you can see the mod name, identifier, version, author, and affected Windows processes. Below the install button is the option to fork the mod. Each mod page generally has details, source code, and change log pages.
Mod Contents
The best mods available are highlighted, categorized into groups. These mods will be covered quickly, so be sure to take notes. Chapters are provided for each mod.
Taskbar Mods - Windows 11 Taskbar Styler
The Taskbar Styler mod allows customization of the Windows 11 taskbar, including transparency, Mac OS-style dock, retro Windows 7 look, and customization of app icon display and grouping. It is a popular and interesting mod.
Taskbar Height and Icon Size
This mod allows users to change the taskbar size and icon size, which is useful since Windows doesn't natively allow changing the taskbar size without scaling the entire display. The best feature is the ability to control the size down to the individual pixel, with smooth icon updates. The default icon size in Windows is 32x32 pixels.
Taskbar Clock Customisation
The Taskbar Clock Customization mod allows users to customize the display of the date and time in Windows, including showing seconds or the long-form date. It also allows adding other information next to the date, such as CPU, RAM usage, download/upload speeds, and news headlines.
Taskbar Tray System Icon Tweaks
This mod allows users to hide various elements grouped together in the taskbar and display the "show desktop" button as it was in older versions of Windows. The width of the button can also be changed. This tool can help achieve a minimal taskbar setup.
Taskbar Tray Icon Spacing and Grid
If the system tray icons are too spread out, this tweak condenses the system tray, allowing users to adjust the spacing to their preference.
Taskbar Labels for Windows 11
This mod customizes how each app instance looks in the taskbar, from the active Windows highlight bar to the text that appears and local grouping controls. It provides granular control over how the taskbar displays various applications.
Remove File Explorer Suffixes
This tweak removes the redundant "file explorer" text from file explorer tabs, freeing up more space on the taskbar.
Taskbar Volume Control
This tweak allows users to change the volume by scrolling over the taskbar, providing a hassle-free way to adjust the volume on the fly.
Mouse Click to Close on Taskbar
This tweak allows users to close a window from the taskbar by pressing the middle mouse button on the taskbar icon. The default behavior in Windows is to open another instance using the middle mouse button, but this tweak provides more options.
Click on Empty Taskbar Space
This mod allows users to click a blank section of the taskbar to perform an action of their choosing, such as launching the task manager, launching a specific application, or even a keyboard shortcut. An action can also be assigned to triple-clicking the taskbar.
Taskbar on Top for Windows 11
This tweak changes the taskbar location to the top of the screen. However, some animations, like the start menu opening, control center toggles, and the overflow menu arrow, do not reverse.
Vertical Taskbar for Windows 11
This mod allows users to place the taskbar on the side of the screen. When applications minimize, they minimize into the top left of the screen. The taskbar can be placed on both the left and right-hand side, and the location from where the start menu appears can be chosen.
Taskbar Thumbnail Reorder
This mod allows users to reorder the preview windows in the taskbar thumbnails, which is useful if the app layout in the Windows preview is misaligned.
Taskbar Auto-Hide When Maximised
This tweak makes the taskbar only autohide when you want to make use of that part of your screen, such as when apps overlap it or when you go full screen with one of your apps.
Aero Peak on Show Desktop Button Hover
This mod brings back the old "peak to show desktop" feature from Windows 7 and 10. Hover delay is also present in the settings.
Multirow Taskbar for Windows 11
This mod allows users to have multiple taskbar rows. Using the taskbar height and size mod is a requirement, as by default, it splits the taskbar into two rows without adjusting for height. This mod also works well with the multirow system tray mod.
Taskbar Thumbnail Size
This mod allows users to change the size of the previews that appear in the taskbar. The percentage size increase of the previews can be changed in the settings.
Disable Taskbar Thumbnails
This mod disables taskbar thumbnails, providing a text-based list when right-clicking a window, similar to Mac OS.
Start Menu Mods - Windows 11 Start Menu Styler
This tweak customizes the start menu with various themes and options. The "no recommendation section" theme allows for two additional rows in the start menu by removing the removable section. Other themes include side-by-side, Windows 10-inspired, and modern fluent design-inspired themes.
UI Mods - Start Button Always on the Left
This tweak allows users to align the start button to the left while keeping apps centered, providing a more balanced look.
Disable Rounded Corners in Windows 11
This mod removes rounded corners and reverts to the Windows 10 style. Windhawk provides a warning regarding this tweak, as it is a deeper-level change.
Customise Windows Notifications Placement
This tweak allows users to change the corner of the screen where notifications appear, with customization options for margin and the ability to have notifications pop up in the center of the screen. The animation plays from right to left regardless of placement.
Windows 11 Notification Centre Styler
This tweak allows users to change the look of the notification center in Windows, with pre-built themes and options to tweak further with commands and codes.
Classic Context Menu on Windows 11
This mod reverts the right-click menu back to how it was in Windows 10. It affects everything from the desktop to the file explorer and doesn't disable the new menu entirely; control-click to get the new menu back. Shift-clicking also brings up the old menu.
File Explorer Mods - Windows 11 File Explorer Styler
This tweak helps breathe new life into the file explorer, allowing users to show and hide various elements of the default file explorer and change transparency. It's a good hybrid between the default file explorer and the dedicated third-party files application.
Disk Pie Chart
This tweak brings back the old pie chart from Windows 7 that was present in the properties of a file or folder, providing a larger and clearer visual.
Turn off Change File Extension Warning
This tweak removes the pop-up warning that appears every time a file extension is changed.
Better File Sizes in Explorer Details
This tweak makes File Explorer show file sizes in megabytes or gigabytes when appropriate, instead of only showing sizes in kilobytes.
Monitor Mods - Alt Tab Per Monitor
This mod changes the behavior of Alt Tab so that each monitor displays its specific Alt Tab list, instead of showing all apps as one big Alt Tab list across all monitors.
Win + D Per Monitor (Show Desktop)
This mod makes the Windows D shortcut only affect the monitor that you have focus on, instead of applying across all monitors.
Start Menu Open Location
This mod makes the Windows start menu appear on different monitors, depending on which one your mouse is on, instead of only appearing on the primary monitor.
