23H2 - Start menu - get rid of pinned bobbins?

[gerardsweeney]

All..

 

I've been tasked with looking at Windows 11 - yay.

 

So... I've got 23H2 ISO. I've patched it to the latest Patch Tuesday.

I've got the most up to date ADMX on the Central Store.

 

How - in the name of all that's good and right in the world - do I get rid of the ridiculous "Pinned" thing on clicking "Start", and just get it to show what's now under "All Apps" on the "Pinned" panel of Start Menu?

 

I've found GPO settings that appear to let me HIDE the "All Apps" button and contents - which is the exact opposite of what I want.

I just want my regular Start Menu to appear when I click on Start - frighteningly rebellious concept, I know.

 

Searches online are pointing me to ExplorerPatcher - which is a no-go for me in our environment.

 

There must surely be a way by now? And I'm just being dense or running without sufficient caffeine?

 

Cheers,

Gerard

[Steve21]

You don't That's Windows 11 Start Menu design (so unless you're bodging it via 3rd parties etc)

 

The honest answer is most users nowadays just type in the search box anyway so we haven't really bothered looking into it, but if we were going to I'd suggest removing "suggested files" and just doing a major pin-fest via XML

 

Steve

[ThatBoringBloke]

I'm with Steve on this one.

I messed about with Start Menu's when we went over to Win 10 only to discover, after hours of trying to get a customised menu to work, that they all just use the Search to find what they want.

We just use the default menu now. Never been an issue.

[Julian]

For more details about how to do a Windows !! Start menu please see this topic

https://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-11/233087-windows-11-start-menu-layout-via-gpo.html

 

I have kept the Start menu simple; Browser, MS Offile, File manger - covers 90%+ of users needs (and does not need to be updated very oftern).

[gerardsweeney]

Thanks for the replies, folks.

 

I already have a minimalist Start Menu for our 10 environment that will suit 11.

My quest was to stop people having to click the frankly ridiculous "All Apps" button to see what they've been used to seeing on 10.

 

Ho hum - maybe they'll fix it with Win 12, and 11 will be dropped like a hot Vista/8 shaped turd in much the same way as the mess that was 8.1 morphed into the perfectly decent 10

[NeoNebula]

Currently, there isn't a straightforward, Microsoft-supported way to replace or significantly modify the ""Pinned"" section of the Start menu in Windows 11 with the ""All Apps"" view. Third-party tools can offer a solution, but they come with their own set of challenges, especially in a managed IT environment.Your situation reflects a broader challenge faced by many IT administrators: balancing the need for customization and user preference with the constraints of the operating system's design and the requirements of a secure, managed environment.

[3s-gtech]

Ho hum - maybe they'll fix it with Win 12, and 11 will be dropped like a hot Vista/8 shaped turd in much the same way as the mess that was 8.1 morphed into the perfectly decent 10

 

You can’t have used the RTM of Windows 10 - it made 8.1 look and feel like a cozy, familiar old jumper (we still stuck with 7!) It was broken, frankly.

 

We delayed deploying it for two years as a result.