How to Make Windows 10 Look Like Windows 11

In this tutorial, learn how to make Windows 10 look like Windows 11.

Customize your Windows 10 desktop with a few tools and themes to make it stand out.

Windows 10 isn’t “the final version of Windows,” as Microsoft has previously stated. Windows 11 will be released soon, and it will include a radically redesigned desktop in addition to a slew of new features.

Many people who have tried a leaked version of the OS have praised Microsoft’s new desktop for being cleaner and more streamlined. To enjoy Windows 11’s new appearance, you don’t need to illegally download the leaked, unstable, and unsupported version. Instead, as we’ll demonstrate here, you can make your existing Windows 10 system appear like Microsoft’s upcoming Windows.

A Clean New Look

Many of the visual aspects in Windows 11 have been tweaked in some way. When combined, they provide Microsoft’s next operating system a cleaner and more streamlined appearance than Windows 10. You can already bring your Windows 10 desktop closer to Windows 11’s by using some of its wallpapers. Beyond that, you may go even closer to the true visual experience of Windows 11.

Although it’s hard to entirely reproduce Windows 11 on Windows 10, we can get quite close by altering the desktop items with a stronger aesthetic impact.

Those elements are:

  • The window theme.
  • The icons.
  • The taskbar.

Thankfully, with the right tools, this is simple.

A note on compatibility: 

We’re utilizing tools that claim to be compatible with Windows 10 Builds 1903-21H1. As a result, you should avoid attempting them on various builds because they may leave your OS unusable.

Even if you’re using a compatible build, we recommend backing up your OS before using them. Before you begin, make a full backup or, at the absolute least, create a system restore point.

Change the Window Theme and Icons

Windows 10 comes with only a few themes by default, two of which have light and dark variations. The Microsoft Store has more themes, but they’re usually not as stunning as those created by individual artists and available on sites like DeviantArt. However, the security of Windows 10 prevents you from installing such themes unless you use a tool that can circumvent the restrictions.

UltraUXThemePatcher and SecureUxTheme are two such tools. We’ll use the updated and safer SecureUxTheme for this lesson.

Go to  SecureUxTheme’s GitHub page, scroll down to the Download section, and grab the Latest release.

If you don’t already have one, sign up for a DeviantArt account to download files. They are only visible to guests. Then, get niivu’s Windows 11 for Windows 10 theme. Create a new folder called “Win11 theme” and save all of the files we’ll need there for convenience.

Download niivu’s Windows 11 Icon Theme from DeviantArt and save it to the same folder.

Both files should be extracted to your temporary theme folder.

SecureUxTheme, however, only supports window themes and not icons. For those, you’ll need a different tool, and one of the most common is 7TSP (short for Seven Theme Source Patcher). You’ll also find it at DeviantArt, making it easier to download with the window and icon themes.

Open the folder in which you’ve saved all of your files. After that, right-click SecureUxTheme’s file and select “Run as administrator.” For the time being, leave everything alone and click Install on the right.

A notice indicating a successful installation will appear, prompting a reboot to make the modifications take effect. Restart your computer.

Return to the place where you unpacked the theme and icon files you downloaded after rebooting. There’s a Windows 10 Themes sub-folder inside the theme’s folder, with two variations of the theme in two more sub-folders.

One has a regular taskbar, while the other has a “thick” taskbar. Choose your favorite, open the folder, and copy everything within (using the CTRL + A and CTRL + C keyboard commands).

Run a second instance of File Explorer (Windows Key + F) for convenience. Then, using CTRL + V, navigate to C:\Windows\Resources\Themes and paste the theme’s files there.

Run SecureUxTheme as administrator once more, and the new theme you added to the Windows 10 themes folder will now be listed on the top left. Select your preferred option (dark or light, with or without address bar).

Choose Patch and apply to use the selected theme.

For a few seconds, your desktop will be locked, and Windows will ask you to wait while the new theme is applied. When you return to your desktop, the new theme will be applied to all of your open windows. SecureUxTheme can now be closed.

Note that the executable file for 7TSP does not have an EXE file extension, but rather a “ee” file extension. Select the file, press F2 to rename it, then type a “x” between “ee” to change the file’s extension to “exe” and make it executable.

Launch the app now and minimize it since you’ll need to run it later.

Now it’s time to rename some additional files. Enter the “7TSP Themes for Windows 10 1903 and higher” sub-folder in the icon theme’s folder.

The icon theme comes in a variety of variations. You can utilize any of them, but their “.remove” extension prevents you from using them.

Rename them first, as before. Delete “.remove” completely, including the dot, and leave everything before it as a file name instead of changing the extension.

Return to 7TSP and select Add a Custom Pack from the drop-down menu. Locate and pick the icon theme you want to use, then click Start Patching (on the bottom right of the window).

After a while, 7TSP will provide some statistics about how long it took to patch your OS and will ask you to restart your computer to apply the modifications.

Your desktop will now resemble a cross between Windows 10 and 11. Even so, we can do better.

Centered Icons on the Taskbar

Though it’s arguably the first feature anyone notices on the new Windows 11 desktop, we’ve saved the centered taskbar for last. That’s because this is the simplest adjustment of all.

All you have to do is start TaskbarX, an application that many people have been using for years and accept its default settings.

Download TaskbarX from here

From TaskbarX’s official site, download one of the “portable” versions. Because the application doesn’t come with an installer, you’ll need to unzip the downloaded file to a place where you’ll execute it from now on. Then, on your desktop, manually create a shortcut to TaskbarX Configurator.

To utilize the default values, open TaskbarX Configurator and click Apply. Icons on your taskbar will be moved to the middle. The Start button and tray, unlike in Windows 11, will remain at the edges of the taskbar, which will still fill the entire width of your screen.

You can play with with the rest of TaskbarX’s features if you want to customize your taskbar even more. You can, for example, modify its hue, switch between visual modes, and uncenter the icons by manually adjusting their margin from the elements to their left and right, among other things.

Note: The most recent version of TaskbarX, 1.7.0.0 at the time of writing, did not work as planned for us. The icons on our taskbar in Windows 10 remained in place. The previous version (1.6.9.0) worked perfectly.

In this video, we are gonna show you how to make Windows 10 look like Windows 11:

Customizing a Fresh Look for Windows 10

The changes we noticed can make your Windows 10 desktop look more like Windows 11. It may not be a pure clone, nor will it offer the same benefits (and questionable alterations) as Microsoft’s forthcoming operating system will.

It’s a pleasant refresh till then, but now that you’ve begun customizing your desktop, why stick with the basic Windows 11 look? You could fine-tune it even further with tools like Rainmeter to get it exactly how you want it.

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