[HN Gopher] The beauty and terror of modding Windows
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The beauty and terror of modding Windows
Author : wild_pointer
Score : 104 points
Date : 2026-03-03 10:49 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (windowsread.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (windowsread.me)
| davydm wrote:
| I gave up modding windows in any meaningful way after the several
| times I was left with a machine which was unstable, or had some
| other issue, or simply became 100% broken after a windows update
| was pushed to my machine.
|
| It's a corporate operating system, not a user operating system.
| If you want to customise your desktop experience and have a
| stable time of it - this is not your platform, sorry. There is
| really only one platform for customisation: linux. Because
| distros and software there have been _designed_ around user
| choice.
|
| Hacks are cool, but inevitably open up vulnerability pathways,
| not to mention issues with stability and being able to receive
| security patches, rolled into windows update. It's fine if it's
| just a personal pc you can reload at any point, but it's
| pointless for a machine that you require to keep functioning (eg
| a work machine, or, my personal machine, which does stuff like
| organise media on a regular basis).
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > There is really only one platform for customisation: linux.
| Because distros and software there have been _designed_ around
| user choice.
|
| At least older versions of Windows were quite modifiable: not
| as radical as on GNU/Linux, but there were a lot of
| possibilities.
|
| Rather with the arrival of smartphones and rising popularity of
| macOS (which all were rather about "enjoying" a prescribed user
| experience), Microsoft did a U-turn and started applying this
| (anti-(?))pattern to Windows, too.
| hrmtst93837 wrote:
| Modding Windows often leads to frustrating stability issues,
| especially after updates. While Linux provides better
| customization with distros like Arch or Fedora, I've achieved
| some stability on Windows through setups like WSL2. Still, the
| inherent restrictions can limit the overall experience. For
| those prioritizing reliability and customization, exploring
| Linux is a wise choice.
| xattt wrote:
| Everyone is at different points in their journey. Let the
| DIwhy-ers have their moment. I used to want to mod out Windows
| XP to look like OS X. Then I had a realization that I just
| wanted OS X and got that as my next machine because I could.
|
| A huge chunk of the population can't afford to make that jump,
| or don't have the will to learn a new OS.
| kace91 wrote:
| >If you dig through Windows enthusiast communities
|
| TIL those exist (genuinely).
|
| I've never met anyone who likes windows, just people who put up
| with it for work/gaming and people who doesn't care about the
| whole thing enough to move from the default (which is totally
| understandable).
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| There are probably more Windows enthusiasts than there are
| Linux enthusiasts in absolute numbers.
| bialpio wrote:
| I'm in the camp of liking Windows and having had to put up with
| Linux and MacOS for work. Inertia and familiarity does play a
| role, but as a dev there are things I really like (ETW + WinDbg
| immediately come to mind) & really miss on other OSes. I'm not
| there yet to join an enthusiast group though. ;)
| croisillon wrote:
| i can confess discovering XP back then made me actively like
| Windows ; that was a long time ago though and with each new
| version my liking has been reaching new abysses
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| There are people like this, although very small minority. I've
| met one at university - he was probably the first person to
| have Windows 8 laptop with a touchscreen, showing off to
| everyone how cool is was (at that time).
|
| He was also really good at Microsoft Word, unironically - he
| made extensive use of custom styling and could format an
| assignment paper in like 30 seconds. He was super useful in
| group projects.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Wow it sounds like you're describing exactly me. All the way
| until the touchscreen laptop with Windows 8. Scary shit!
|
| I used to laugh at the LaTeX masochists in college spending
| 15 minutes just to put a picture where they wanted the
| picture to be. They had to add like four 1-character
| modifiers to the "insert image" command, each of which meant
| "yes, really here", "no, don't move it to the next page" and
| "nono, really _really_ here ".
|
| MS Word is properly great if you _only_ use the custom style
| rules (basically CSS classes) at the paragraph level, and
| never directly apply styling (basically inline styles) except
| for super basic stuff like making a word italic. Has great
| referencing tools etc, fantastic formula editor and so on.
| And, well, you can use ultra modern human-machine interaction
| technology such as a mouse to choose where a picture goes and
| how big it is.
|
| (They might've enshittified it since; the last paper I wrote
| was in 2010 and Word was pretty damn decent back then)
| trympet wrote:
| Did you also have a windows 8 laptop with touch screen?
| skrebbel wrote:
| Yep! Sorry I just edited that in. Win8 is thoroughly
| underrated to me. The file open/close dialogs were shit
| but the start menu was very good. I quite liked the
| fullscreen apps and am sad they got discontinued.
| Fullscreen IE browsing with full touch support (eg swipe
| for back/forward, no window chromes in the way to mis-
| click on etc) was very cool. It made every website feel
| like a fullscreen app. It almost made the terrible
| browser engine (it was still IE after all) bearable.
| Almost.
|
| I'm pretty much still on the same setup now, Win11 plus
| touchscreen. You'll pry my touchscreen out of my cold
| dead hands. How will I rage-close a "try chrome" popup
| without a touch screen? You ever try to rage click
| something with a touchpad? Total non starter.
| Someone wrote:
| > MS Word is properly great if you only use the custom
| style rules (basically CSS classes) at the paragraph level,
| and never directly apply styling (basically inline styles)
| except for super basic stuff like making a word italic
|
| MS word also has character styles (like a CSS style on a
| <span>). IMO you should use instead of bold or italic.
|
| (There are three more types of styles: linked, table and
| List. See https://office-watch.com/2022/word-five-types-
| styles/)
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'm aware, but Word's notorious "I clicked one button and
| it ruined the formatting of my entire document" stuff
| doesn't happen if you mark a word as italic or bold here
| and there in the middle of a sentence. The whole point of
| only using the style rules is to prevent it doing that.
|
| But yeah for _layout_ , ie headings and the likes, only
| ever use the styles, never "bold, bigger bigger bigger".
| Don't touch the line spacing button, etc etc.
|
| IMO Word could do with a mode where those buttons are
| simply hidden. Want a bigger, fatter heading? Edit the
| heading style. There's no other way.
| buescher wrote:
| You can turn almost all of those buttons off in the
| settings and save it as a template. The only complaint I
| ever got was from somone who wanted to use the
| highlighter instead of the built-in comment management
| system.
| dismalaf wrote:
| LaTeX is probably annoying as a Word replacement however
| RMarkdown with embedded LaTeX saved me sooooo much time on
| my economics homework in university. Being able to put
| code, equations, graphs generated by said code, etc... all
| in one file then simply generate a PDF...
| johanneskanybal wrote:
| I mean not everyone cheers for the currently best soccer team
| either, it's partly about what you're invested in. If I had
| spent many years in Windows dev land I'm sure I would be
| arguing that side too.
| matsemann wrote:
| That's honestly more narrow-minded by you, than those "not
| moving from the default". Maybe you're the one that never went
| deep into the rabbit-hole of what's possible, or actually
| properly learned to use the OS?
| raincole wrote:
| There are so many Windows users that even if the percentage of
| enthusiast users is only 10% of that of Mac, it's still quite a
| lot of people.
| Anonyneko wrote:
| I was thrilled for new Windows releases between 3.11 and 8.1.
| I'm still reasonably fond of Windows for personal use. For now
| I can still de-enshittify it enough to get back the experience
| I'm used to, and it's comfortable and convenient. But I'm not
| sure if that will last for long, given the current trend.
|
| That said, for work I've switched to Linux full-time years ago.
| Native containers are a killer feature for me, and the
| different UX and driver/dependency/repository issues aren't
| significant enough to make me want to go back to virtualization
| in Windows.
| Telaneo wrote:
| I'm not sure these people like Windows as much as they like
| what it does for them, but they are willing to put in
| significant effort to remove the normal Windows roadblocks and
| annoyances, and thus are willing to hack and chop it to bits to
| get them closer to their end goals more quickly.
|
| They're not like a car enthusiast who loves their MX5 out of
| its sheer beauty and feel, but rather they love their SUV
| because of it's big boot and because it gets them where they
| need to be, and thus are perfectly happy to tear out the old
| radio and uncomfortable seats.
|
| The only difference is that car enthusiasts have many more
| options to choose from, while in OSes, if you're stuck with
| Windows, you're usually _really_ stuck with it. Linux is
| certainly _an_ option, but not one that is universally
| practical to apply.
| expedition32 wrote:
| Why yes for me an OS is just something that I use to launch
| games, browsers and programs... Is that so strange? There is
| no Windows cult unlike Linux.
|
| For most people I'm sure computers are a tool not an
| identity.
| rererereferred wrote:
| I was a Windows modding enthusiast until I tried Linux and the
| modding there was superior (and then compiz appeared).
|
| These days whenever I use Windows I install bash and use a
| terminal so I don't really care about the window management,
| other than maximizing windows.
| jasomill wrote:
| As of Windows 11, window management is one of the few things
| Windows does better than macOS or Linux desktop environments
| out of the box, thanks to the Windows+Z tiling feature.
|
| And then I use my touchpad to switch between virtual desktops
| and the jerky animation reminds me why I prefer to run non-
| game Windows applications remotely from a Mac.
| cyberax wrote:
| I loved hacking Windows back in 2000-s! It was super-hackable
| and had PLENTY of very thorough documentation (Petzold's
| "Programming Windows"!).
|
| You could even do a lot of kernel-level shenanigans with
| relative impunity thanks to its layered design. You could do
| some amazing stuff.
|
| As an example, SWSoft released container ("lightweight
| virtualization") support for Windows in 2005, before containers
| were even a thing in the mainline Linux. They did that by
| adding a layer of redirection on top of the kernel objects
| without having access to Windows source code.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| I would genuinely enjoy Windows (with WSL) if Microsoft didn't
| go to special efforts to make the experience horrible by
| shoving useless AI functionality, or advertising down my
| throat.
| baal80spam wrote:
| Never heard of Windhawk.
| lproven wrote:
| This was news to me, too.
|
| But I rarely use Windows. I used to like it but for me XP was
| so ugly and bloated I switched to Linux and OS X full-time.
| I've never looked back.
|
| I just play occasionally to keep my skills vaguely current.
| Sometimes I need to work with it.
|
| Windows 11 is _awful_. Bloated, full of ads and nags, forcibly
| keeps your stuff in the crappy MS cloud drive for which there
| 's no Linux GUI client.
|
| You can't even put the taskbar on the left edge where it
| belongs.
|
| Worse than Vista or Win ME or even Win 8.x.
|
| I moved all my emergency Windows partitions to Win10 IoT LTSC.
| Quite unbloated, proper local accounts, no Store, no Onedrive,
| no Modern apps at all. It's what Win10 should have been.
|
| And it's getting updates until 2032.
|
| So, Windhawk looks fun but I don't need it.
| Hard_Space wrote:
| I moved all my LAN machines to IoT LTSC 2021 a year ago.
| Though I don't regret it, be aware that update delay limits
| are the same as other Windows OS versions; that useful things
| like WSL2 will need installing from the app store to get the
| systemd version, and you'll need to install the Windows app
| store from an enthusiast repo on Github; that Windows major
| version number is a fair way behind, affecting max Docker
| dated releases and same for many other frameworks; etc. It's
| not that I meet a new limit every day, but certainly every
| few weeks.
| lproven wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I almost never use Windows, and I don't want things like
| WSL or Docker anyway. I mainly keep it around for things
| like upgrading firmware, occasionally flashing new ROMs
| onto phones, stuff like that.
|
| I tried the MyWhoosh virtual-cycling app on one of my
| boxes.
|
| https://mywhoosh.com/
|
| I was able to download and install the Windows Store direct
| from Microsoft with no problem at all.
|
| https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9wzdncrfjbmp?hl=en-
| GB&gl=I...
|
| (I just Googled that link -- it might not be the right one.
| MyWhoosh is _only_ available on the Store. It refused to
| run on my elderly GPU anyway, though.)
|
| Thanks for the warning, though!
| robmccoll wrote:
| If you want tweaks that are a little more first party, there's
| always PowerToys https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/powertoys/
| jeremycarter wrote:
| There are genuinely some great power toys available.
| timpera wrote:
| Definitely! I couldn't live without the "Quick Accent"
| PowerToys to quickly add accents that don't exist on my
| keyboard, I use it hundreds of times a day.
| MaanuAir wrote:
| Me too, but it is so unreliable laggy, I sometimes have to
| wait 2 secs or more for the menu to appear, ruining the
| flow.
|
| And typing ALT 0151 to get an em dash, I mean seriously?
|
| For someone typing accents and em + en dashes on purpose --
| well before it becomes an AI's trait -- it's so
| infuriating, I can't believe people type books on Windows.
| All this while macOS solved this, built in the OS, since
| ages now...
| greggsy wrote:
| Can't live without CmdPal.
| raincole wrote:
| I feel like it's for a totally different purpose though. The
| thing mentioned in this article seems to aim for changing how
| Windows' windows management and taskbar work completely.
| layer8 wrote:
| PowerToys are more like separate utility programs, rather than
| the UI tweaks that WindHawk mods do by hooking into Explorer
| and the like.
| robmccoll wrote:
| Speaking of modding desktop environments, has anyone figured out
| how to get back the old border radius in macOS Tahoe?
| operator-name wrote:
| I've been using WindHawk for a bit, and my favourite mods have
| been:
|
| - Slick Window Arrangement (better window snapping):
| https://windhawk.net/mods/slick-window-arrangement
|
| - Better file sizes in Explorer details:
| https://windhawk.net/mods/explorer-details-better-file-sizes
| fifticon wrote:
| file sizes in explorer is my pet peeve, it should be a builtin.
| When I am coding and making small projects, I want to see the
| bytes. I hate that everything is shown as "1 or 2 k". and it is
| a hazzle to get access to and install of the mods that show
| bytes column. It should just be an extra column available by
| default 'Byte Size'.
| RGamma wrote:
| Or automatic column width. Or even setting the same column
| widths for all folders (try it, it's tough without 3rd party
| tools). Or the UI hangs with network folders. Or the search
| that never finds anything. I could go on...
| layer8 wrote:
| For the first item, there's at least a keyboard shortcut
| that I use regularly: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnew
| thing/20121030-00/?p=62...
| RGamma wrote:
| It would take one teeny tiny setting to always do this,
| yet it seems so far away...
| layer8 wrote:
| As an approximation, you could use AutoHotKey to have the
| key press sent every 200ms when an Explorer window has
| focus. ;)
|
| Personally, I wouldn't want to have it automatically,
| because sometimes you have _really_ long file names, or
| other columns that can get arbitrarily wide. There would
| also have to be a configurable maximum column width.
| RGamma wrote:
| Nah no workaround. I'll take the hit until I can switch
| to something better on my work PC. Several decisions
| Microsoft has taken make it more likely that I'll invest
| the time. May as well try to un-Microsoft my org (at
| least to the degree I'm involved) while I'm at it.
| blindstitch wrote:
| By the time I stopped using windows 10 on my daily driver last
| year I had 6 tweak apps always running to smooth over the endless
| papercuts. Now that I'm on KDE I don't have to run anything, it's
| all doable via stock control panels.
| reddalo wrote:
| Me too. I'm on Linux Mint now and I love how simple, fast but
| also customizable it is.
|
| If it's not for some specific games or programs, I don't see a
| single reason to still use Windows in 2026.
| aquariusDue wrote:
| Yeah, between KDE and Cinnamon I can focus on my work and
| have the desktop environment gently fade into the background.
| Though some get a similar feeling using stuff like i3, sway
| or Niri.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| The only tweak I'd be willing to venture over a janky rope bridge
| for is a tiling window that doesn't focus-steal.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Windhawk makes me think about the future of Windows, too.
| Microsoft is talking about a "Windows Baseline Security Mode"
| that PCs will be in by default, only letting properly signed
| software run and forcing apps to ask for your permission when
| they access your files, webcam, microphone, and other resources.
| According to Microsoft, this will only be a default -- you can
| choose to opt out.
|
| Yeah, just as I can "choose" to root my Android phone. I can do
| that, yes, but the result will be that Netflix, banking apps and
| most games refuse to even start.
| stuffoverflow wrote:
| I recently had the idea of somehow integrating Everything's
| folder size index to explorer and after failing to do it with
| claude code, I found out that Windhawk + Better file sizes does
| just that. I would have expected at least some performance
| degradation but in fact it was the opposite and made it feel much
| snappier. A huge QoL improvement to explorer that I've now
| installed to all my Windows PCs. Note that you need the alpha
| version (1.5) of Everything for best performance.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Somewhat related:
|
| A long time ago, I used "7+ Taskbar Tweaker" that added a lot of
| nice things to Windows 7, like reordering the tasks in the
| taskbar. Now I'm remembering that the best feature was to ungroup
| the windows of the same task, that was super nice to edit two
| documents in Word
|
| It used a lot of magic, probably overwriting dll calls in the
| kernel of Windows. It looks like it only partially support
| Windows 11 https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker
| krige wrote:
| Wasn't that taskbar/windows thing just a toggle in official
| taskbar settings?
| kubik369 wrote:
| I recall that the official setting was everything grouped or
| everything ungrouped. What GP is referring to is probably the
| ability to break out a single window from a group.
| layer8 wrote:
| See https://superuser.com/questions/559782/windows-7-taskbar-
| nev....
|
| There is a difference between grouping and combining, and 7TT
| provided many more options.
| layer8 wrote:
| A replacement for the ungrouping with WindHawk is
| https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-grouping. There may be other
| mods that also cover that.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > A long time ago, I used "7+ Taskbar Tweaker"...
|
| Way to make me feel old! I'm still using it!
|
| > ...to Windows 7
|
| Aah that's better.
|
| The tool still works on 10 btw, and offers some options not
| available otherwise - eg properly narrow taskbar when vertical
| (about small icon width wide).
| tencentshill wrote:
| It's by the same developer, m417z.
| fergie wrote:
| Getting all of this to work on Windows seems like a bit of a
| thankless task. If customisability is important, why wouldn't you
| just go over to Linux?
| c0balt wrote:
| Platform lock-in is powerful, from the M$ Office Suite to
| professional software for CAD up to Games
| hexage1814 wrote:
| As a windows power user myself, many of my workflows don't
| translate that easily. If you are an experienced Windows user,
| you probably have programs that you use on Windows and that
| aren't available for Linux. It's not that you couldn't
| theoretically translate that workflow into Linux, but boy, it
| would be a headache.
|
| To give an example: I use AutoHotkey, it's a scripting language
| for Windows that allows you to do a bunch of things. You can
| customize the keyboard, mouse, you can create menus and
| toolboxes, you can target specific applications inside. It's a
| fantastic tool. But it isn't available for Linux for obvious
| reasons; Linux is much more fragmented. You need like 3 or 5
| different programs to achieve the same result in some cases,
| depending on your given script.
|
| In other words: debloating Windows and customizing it is
| considerably easier than installing Linux. Let alone some
| really good software you end up finding along the way:
| Everything, which is an amazing search program that allows you
| to create custom categories and the like. EmEditor, which is
| really good software to open and visualize really large text
| files, like it can open a 4GB txt with no problems.
|
| About the last sentence:
|
| >If customisability is important
|
| People value both things: customisability but also they value
| their time (of not having to come up with a new workflow), they
| value the programs and workflow they already learned to use
| through the years, and so on and so forth.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's less work on Windows for many things, and the system of UI
| events, hooks, and controls is more amenable to universal
| customization/automation than on Linux, which is more
| heterogeneous between applications, window managers and desktop
| environments.
| anthk wrote:
| These hacks will just duplicate code by not using builting
| Explorer/Shell32 libraries and the like. So in the end you are
| running two instances of different tools. Also they will be
| totally useless on updates.
|
| Back in the day you could use nLite and the like to replace W98's
| shell with the Windows 95 one, but keeping the compatibility. On
| GNU/Linux and BSD, you could use FVWM instead of bloated
| environments, or Fluxbox, IceWM... and still run things fast.
|
| With current Windows tons of components are interleaved.
| albert_e wrote:
| I want to pin my most frequently used folders as favorites to the
| toolbar of File Explorer (just like we have a favorites bar on
| Edge browser).
|
| Why is this not possible.
| layer8 wrote:
| I use the Quick access list for that, and have Explorer set to
| open in it by default. I also take care that the folders all
| start with different letter, so I can blindly type Win+E Letter
| Return to open any one of the folders.
|
| You can also add shortcuts to folders in the taskbar and use
| Win+Digit to open them.
| wink wrote:
| The most ridiculous thing is that you were simply able to move
| the taskbar in Win 10 for sure, in Win7 kinda sure and maybe
| longer... I still don't get why they thought removing this
| harmless feature would make sense.
| noisem4ker wrote:
| The taskbar could be moved to any edge of the screen since its
| introduction in Windows 95.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| This might be a place for an answer.
|
| I've completely disabled explorer.exe from running; among other
| things it disables the win11 openwith dialog from opening.
| Replacing with the win10 onew orks, but it'll regularly be
| replaced with the 11 one by Windows. Any solutions?
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Windows 11 has not been built to officially supporting that
| type of UI customisation out of the box, you're relying on
| hacks for that, not using official APIs.
|
| So since every major Windows update functions as a core OS
| reinstall, your hacked setup will be restored to a clean slate.
|
| You have two choices: Accept this limitation or move to another
| OS, there's no in-between.
| bakugo wrote:
| > Windhawk may also cause serious problems with PC games that use
| anti-cheat software. On the project's explanation page I just
| linked, there's a description of how Windhawk hardcodes the
| default installation paths of many PC games. If you installed
| games to a different folder -- perhaps your Steam folder is on
| your D: drive -- Windhawk will load its DLL into those game
| processes. You'll have to go out of your way to exclude that
| folder to stop it.
|
| This was a major concern for me when I first installed Windhawk,
| too.
|
| Since I only use a couple mods for Explorer, I ended up simply
| excluding every process from injection and explicitly including
| explorer.exe only. This can be done by going to advanced
| settings, setting the process exclusion list to nothing but an
| asterisk, and then adding explorer.exe and any other specifically
| desired processes into the inclusion list.
| chroma_zone wrote:
| Having spent a few years trying to write Windows utility
| software, it is really exhausting to be in an antagonistic
| relationship with Microsoft and have their updates constantly
| break your work.
|
| The article mentions ExplorerPatcher -- the changelog [1] of that
| project is informative. Every release involves fixing a bunch of
| things that Microsoft broke, intentionally or not. Some of this
| is understandable given how it (necessarily) messes with low
| level OS components, but there is still zero transparency and you
| just need to roll with whatever changes. I can't imagine doing
| that kind of work anymore.
|
| [1] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases
| asveikau wrote:
| This seems to be about injecting your own code into a running
| process and then modifying its behavior. The kinds of things
| that would break from build to build are VERY DIFFERENT from
| what typical applications would face.
| chroma_zone wrote:
| A lot of basic tweaks to windows behavior require those types
| of unstable hacks. The point is that developers or users who
| want to modify their system are forced into sketchy software.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Windhawk vertical task bar is a game changer for me.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| What's old is new again.
| https://web.archive.org/web/20151104081734/http://www.xpize....
| Grom_PE wrote:
| Modding Windows is akin to building a sand castle. It might be
| fun, beautiful, but very much impermanent. You can expect it to
| be washed off with the next Windows update.
|
| I've done it before on Windows 7. Resized system clock, resized
| start menu button, removed "Terminate batch job (Y/N)?" warning
| in cmd, etc.
|
| Most annoying is that VirtualBox stops working with the patched
| uxtheme.dll.
|
| ...
|
| Life on Linux is great. My modifications stick for as long as I
| want. Permanently if I get my patches upstream.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Man back in the XP days we used to just edit registry entries
| responsible for these things and use reshack to open binaries for
| modification.
| attentive wrote:
| "Imagine moving the taskbar" - the state of 2026 windows is
| pathetic.
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