If you're willing to live with the downsides, here are the steps for getting the Windows 10 taskbar in Windows 11. It also allows you to unlock the taskbar and drag it to the sides or top of the screen. However, if you don't use the classic taskbar, you can get those back in another way, which we'll explain in a section later. On the bright side, enabling the classic taskbar also gives you back the Windows 10 File manager (with ribbon) and the Windows 10 right click context menus.

You also must have a third-party Start menu installed, because clicking the Start button on the classic taskbar will do nothing on its own. However, you can search directly from the Start menu and hit Windows key + Tab to get the Task View menu. Considering that the Windows 11 taskbar's Task View and search buttons work, this is a loss of functionality. The Task View button is worse than useless as it crashes when you click it, causing the taskbar to hide your icons for a minute or two while it recovers, so you should hide it also. There's a search box, but clicking it does nothing, and you may see a Cortana button that does nothing.

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