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Appearance tweaks

Visual effects, theming, File Explorer styling, and context-menu cleanup. Apply to taste.

Appearance tweaks and personalization covering visual effects, transparency, dark mode, File Explorer styling, and context-menu cleanup. Apply to taste. A few, like disabling transparency, also cut desktop compositor GPU load.

General

  • Adjust Windows Visual Effects opens the built-in Performance Options dialog to tune animations, shadows, and other window visual effects.
  • Enable Dark Mode switches both app and system themes to dark mode.
  • Disable Notification Center hides the Action Center / Notification Center pane. Individual toasts still appear.
  • Restore Classic Alt+Tab Style restores the Windows 7-style Alt+Tab switcher without live thumbnails.
  • Disable Transparency disables Acrylic/Mica transparency on the taskbar and windows. Reduces desktop compositor GPU load.

File Explorer

  • Show File Extensions always shows file extensions in Explorer.
  • Hide Network in Explorer hides the Network entry in the Explorer sidebar.
  • Hide Gallery in Explorer hides the Gallery entry in the Explorer sidebar (Windows 11).
  • Hide Home in Explorer hides the Home entry in the Explorer sidebar and defaults Explorer to This PC.

Context menu

  • Restore Classic Context Menu restores the Windows 10-style right-click menu, skipping the “Show more options” step.
  • Hide Restore Previous Versions removes “Restore previous versions” from the right-click menu.
  • Hide Pin to Quick Access removes “Pin to Quick access” from the right-click menu.
  • Hide Print from Context Menu removes “Print” from the right-click menu on common file types.
  • Hide Pin to Start removes “Pin to Start” from the right-click menu.
  • Hide Share from Context Menu removes “Share” from the right-click menu.
  • Hide Include in Library removes “Include in library” from the right-click menu.
  • Restart Explorer restarts explorer.exe to apply pending File Explorer and context-menu changes without a reboot.

Known issues

Across different versions of Windows (especially a brand-new version), some tweaks may show as checked but not actually be taking effect, so it's recommended to re-apply. The ones on this Appearance page are the most affected, and among those it's particularly some of the File Explorer and context-menu options. For example, Hide Home in File Explorer is currently buggy: if you delete a file and then undo the delete, Home reappears in Explorer until you refresh the window, a strange bug that's being looked into. Please notify Adamx if you find any of these anomalies so a quick fix can be added.

Some Appearance toggles are also among those a Windows feature update has been seen to revert; the overview has the list.