Customization on Windows is good with themes and all, but I was curious to see what programs people use to add to the Windows shell, instead of replacing or theming it.
I use Smart Taskbar, Windows Caffeinated and Windows Toolkit that all add icons to the system tray, in the same style, that do the following:
— Smart Taskbar: Clicking the icon will hide the taskbar automatically, and can be set to show the taskbar when an app is windowed, but hide when maximized.
— Windows Caffeinated: Keeps your PC from sleeping. You can use PowerAwake with MSPowerToys, but I don't like the icon.
— Desktop Toolkit: A Swiss army knife of utilities. It's hard to describe but, it has pinned apps, custom folder pins, timers, screen recording, color picker, recent files, etc. I like to pin custom PowerShell scripts here.
— Toggle Desktop Icons: This app lets you double-click the desktop to hide icons, and adds a system tray icon. It's similar to HiddenMe on macOS.
I hope this leads to a great discussion and sharing of information!
I use MS Powertoys, mostly for window snapping on w10. On w11 I really like Nilesoft Shell
Have you noticed a drastic different in explorer load times in w11?
Running an i7-10700k/32gbRAM/nVME that does not have any resource limits, but explorer will take a good 3-5 seconds to open; it is super frustrating
on my private computer with 5800x3d 32gb and nvme opening a new explorer window is a tad slower. on my work device with i5-8350u and 16gb logging in and loading the core explorer task takes ages, but then during normal use i dont feel any further slowdowns