Most but not all of this came from http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/make-windows-10-like-windows-7
Get rid of the stupid first screen before log in. Who ever thought that was cute … just another click in the world we don’t need.
NOTE: MICROSOFT FIXED THIS SO IT DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE. I’M LEAVING IT HERE FOR POSTERITY
- The following script will replace a dll file. See http://www.ghacks.net/2016/08/05/disable-windows-10-lock-screen/#comment-3997876 for an explaination.
- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByXxjI18DZC5VE8xalJKSGJ3SXc/view
- Look for the download arrow in the upper right of thepage
- Extract to desktop?
- Run Install
- Reboot to see effect or just continue on
Unpin the Microsoft store icon
- Right click the Store icon on the start bar (icon looks like a suitcase with black squares on the side)
- Select Unpin from task bar
Install a new start menu
- Download and install Classic Shell
- Accept default settings
- Right click the start menu
- Select settings
- Check Replace Start Button near the bottom
- Select the Classic button (I did)
- Click OK
- Click the start menu and see the changes
Choose a solid color with more options
- Open Paint
- Click on the Color 2 box
- Select the color you want, use Edit Colors for other selections
- Create a box
- Save the image, the default location is your pictures folder
- Click on the File tab
- Select Set as desktop background/Fill
- Your color will instantly fill the background
- Close Paint
- If you don’t like the color, just open your image and change the color (sorry, no details here on doing that)
Make File Explorer look like Windows Explorer
- Download and install 7-Zip
- Go to C:\Program Files\7-Zip
- Double click 7zFM (7z is a command line tool)
- Go to Menu/Tools/Options/
- In the Systems tab click on the right most + box
- That will set 7-zip as the default program to open most zipped files
- Download OldNewExplorer
- Open OldNewExplorer, 7-zip will open showing you the files
- Double click on OldNewWxplorerCfg.exe
- Approve the program to run
- The options window will appear
- Click on the install button to place the dll files into the system
- Allow the program to make changes (window may be hidden behind, mine was)
- Check Use classical drive grouping in This PC
- Check Use command bar instead of ribbon
- Check Show details pane on the bottom
- Lots of tweaks are available, Check out a full guide for all the tweaks.
Get rid of Cortina
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-tip-turn-off-cortana-completely/
In the update version of Windows 10 they try to stop you from turning off Cortana search. So now you have to change the setting in regedit.
- In search type regedit
- Find
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search
(you might need to create this key if it doesn’t exist) - Create the DWORD value AllowCortana and set it to 0.
- Type “cortana” in the search box
- Select Cortana & search settings
- Turn shit off.
- Start/PC Settings
- Select Privacy
- Turn shit off
Give the Window Bars Colors
- Right Click on the desktop and select Personalization.
- Select Colors in the left pane
- Toggle “Automatically pick an accent color from my background” to off
- Select a color. The dark blue in the second row will make it most like Windows 7-like shade.
- Exit Personalization.
Turn off notifications
This one is from http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-tip-disable-annoying-app-notifications/
- In the main menu select “PC Settings”
- Select “System Display, notifications, apps, power”
- Select “Notifications and actions”
- Turn off all notifications by moving the Show app notifications slider to the Off position.
- Exit PC Settings.
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