Windhawk Is an App Store for Windows Mods
Have you ever wished Windows worked a little differently? You are not alone. Windhawk is a free and open source application that offers dozens of community-curated “mods” for Windows and Windows applications. This is the easiest Windows customization tool I’ve ever encountered.
The app, which you can download for free, is a sort of app store for Windows mods. If you’re interested, you can also look at mods online . I’ve found tweaks that can do things you’d otherwise need special software to do, from replacing the Windows 11 Start menu with an older version to adding labels back to taskbar icons. Basically, if you want to change something about how Windows works, there’s a good chance Windhawk can fix it.
When you open Windhawk, you will be presented with a mod store. From here you can view and install mods in a couple of clicks.
You will be warned to think critically every time you go to install a mod. There will also be a link to the Github page for the mod’s creator, which means you can view the script if anything bothers you. This caution is welcome – you should always think critically before installing mods like this.
After installing the mode, you can configure it inside the application – just go to the “Settings” section of the mod. For example, if you decide to change the appearance of the Windows taskbar, you can choose the theme you want.
Here are a few of my favorite mods I’ve found (so far) to get you started:
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The height of the taskbar and the size of the icons allow the massive taskbar to be reduced to the height it was in the glory days of Windows 2000.
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Windows 11 Start Menu Stylist lets you replace the cluttered Start menu with something more simplified, or the Start menu you remember from a previous version of Windows.
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Customizing the taskbar clock allows you to change what information is and isn’t shown in the taskbar clock, formatting it however you want and even including headers from an RSS feed if you want.
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The taskbar volume slider makes it easy to adjust the volume—hover your mouse anywhere on the taskbar and scroll up and down. Simple.
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Disabling taskbar grouping means that every window you open will have its own icon on the taskbar, even multiple windows within the same application.
I could go on all day about what this app can do, but the real fun comes from exploring and tweaking until everything works the way you want it to. My recommendation: dive.