Make Windows 11 Look & Feel More Like XP: Next Steps

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About a month ago I published an article on making Windows 11 look and feel more like Windows XP (or Classic Windows). While the end result of that process was very successful, in my humble opinion, it wasn’t perfect and there is still a lot of work to be done in order to get it as close as possible to looking/feeling like good old Windows XP.

In this article I wanted to show the next steps to this transformation. It’s still not perfect, but it’s getting there and with all free or built in software. While the part one focused heavily on overhauling the visual style of the desktop and taskbar, this one is more about nailing down some of the smaller details. Let’s get started.

Fixing the Window Title Bars (mostly…)

The biggest problem that was still leftover from my last installment was the problem of the UI title bars. Older versions of Windows had window title bars that were uniformed across all applications with its default blue or blue gradient and grey window control buttons. In Windows XP the default color scheme was changed with the Luna theme. Instead of the blue gradient of Windows Me/2000, we ended up with this royal blue bar with more pronounced blue minimize and maximized buttons and a bold orange close button. Now I’m not sure yet on what to do with the window controls, but we can kinda-sorta fix the title bar problem.