Windows 11 has been out for about four and a half years now, and clearly, that hasn't been enough time for it to entice everyone with its aesthetics. The irony is that Windows has always been one of the most customizable mainstream desktop operating systems available, and yet, the default options for personalization are limited to toggling from light to dark mode, and perhaps choosing between one of 24 default wallpapers.

And by "customization", I don't just mean how the OS looks. It also has a lot to do with how the OS feels, which, in turn, comes down to the seamlessness and customizability of the user interface, such as how intuitively it responds and how little friction it puts between you and the task at hand. Regrettably enough, almost all of these problems require you to reach for third-party utilities, but fortunately enough, the ones that exist will make you wonder why you've waited so long to try them. Here's what I'm using to make my PC feel like my own.

Rainmeter makes the desktop look the way I want it to

All the information I want, minus the clutter

Rainmeter has been around for a long while, and one of the reasons why it's still the go-to desktop customization tool for Windows is because of the sheer breadth of what it allows. It's remarkably simple to use. Once it's downloaded, you can install "skins", which allow you to place interactive, configurable elements on your desktop. The range of customization is handed entirely to the user, which means you have the option to either run a single clock that you feel looks good on your desktop (like myself), or arrange a full system dashboard depending on how much or how little you want on the screen.

I personally use the Mond skin, which I find aesthetically pleasing. Besides the on-screen clock, Mond also supports an optional media player widget, a weather display, and a settings panel, but using all of them together tends to take from the minimalist aesthetic that I aim for.

Other users online tend to take Rainmeter a little further. SysDash is a popular choice among those who want a live dashboard showing CPU load, RAM usage, and storage utilization at a glance. For those who wish to ditch the Windows feel altogether, DropTop Four places a macOS-inspired dropdown menu bar and app launcher across the top of the screen. Since every skin is free, Rainmeter allows for virtually endless customization and mixing-and-matching until you find something that suits your needs or is tailored to your aesthetic sense.

Windhawk is the mod manager Windows 11 needed all this time

I can bring back everything Microsoft removed, and add everything it never added

If you noticed that the transparent taskbar in the lead image looks nothing like a standard Windows 11 taskbar, that's because it's a Windhawk customization. It's only one of the hundreds of mods available through Windhawk's entirely open-source marketplace, which injects these tweaks directly into Windows shell processes.

When I first used Windhawk, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of customizations it offers. Almost a year after discovering it, I am confident that I've only reached the tip of the iceberg. The Taskbar Styler alone allows for transparency effects, custom corner radii, blur, and border modifications. There are also ways to change how the taskbar looks, and some of those ways include literally sending the UI back in time. There's a taskbar mod for anyone who wants Windows to behave like a pre-2012 OS, a way to restore the classic Windows 10 taskbar, and for the historically inclined, one that dials it all the way back to Windows XP. Apparently there are some people who miss it dearly.

The scale of customization that Windhawk makes possible is reflected in the online community that has grown alongside it. It's one of those utilities that has its own active subreddit wherein users share their configurations almost every day.

The PowerToys suite has something for everyone

It's how you make your Windows PC "feel" like yours

If Rainmeter handles how your desktop looks and Windhawk makes it possible to govern how it behaves, PowerToys handles how Windows feels to use, which makes the customization journey feel complete. Every conversation surrounding Windows 11 is incomplete without addressing the friction that comes from a poorly considered interface, and the small inefficiencies that accumulate across a workday are exactly what PowerToys works to alleviate. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why anyone who has ever used the PowerToys suite has never looked back on it.

When I say that the PowerToys suite has something for everyone, I mean it quite literally. That includes those who want seamless multitasking that doesn't feel like a chore, a keystroke launcher that doesn't fetch irrelevant web search results, or simply those who happen to be multilingual and don't wish to memorize Unicode characters every time they need a special accent. From FancyZones to PowerToys Run and from Quick Accent to Advanced Paste, every utility in the suite feels like a natural evolution of features that ship with a default Windows install. If you've used Windows for any length of time, you'll recognize immediately what each tool is fixing, at which point though, it'll be impossible to go back.

Putting the "personal" back into the personal computer

Windows 11 shipped with far less customizability than its predecessors, and somehow expected it to be enough. The utilities I mentioned each restore a unique aspect of personalization that's conspicuously absent from the native experience, including how the OS looks, behaves, and feels to use. Each of these fix a rather common gripe I had with the OS, with varying levels of customizability that can be tailored to a taste that's unique for every user. While one may not want to use all three together, there really is no reason not to give them all a go.