There isn't a lot that hasn't already been said about Windows 11 and its taskbar — the good and the bad. Microsoft's locked-down approach to the Windows 11 taskbar stripped away years of muscle memory and customization for countless users, leaving power users with a UI that chooses form over function. After all, it took half a decade for Microsoft to give us the vertical taskbar back.

That's where Windhawk steps in, and it is perhaps the best tool you need to bend Windows back to your will. Not only does Windhawk restore lost features, but it also transforms your Windows 11 taskbar into something downright unrecognizable, to the point where it absolutely becomes a non-negotiable for power users.

You can use great-looking styles for the taskbar

I've said goodbye to TranslucentTB

Right off the bat, if you don't already use tools like TranslucentTB to turn your taskbar transparent and merge better with your wallpaper, Windhawk has your back. After a quick installation, the first mod I installed on my taskbar was the "Windows 11 Taskbar Styler," which lets me control the aesthetic of my taskbar by cycling through multiple styles.

From here, you can turn your taskbar translucent, transparent, or even transform it completely, turning it into a dock-like bar. In fact, if you're feeling funky enough, this Windhawk mod allows you to turn the entire taskbar into Windows XP and Windows Vista-era options as well. That being said, I've settled with the SimplyTransparent option in the Taskbar Styler mod, and promptly uninstalled TranslucentTB from my PC as well.

Power user stats in the system tray

The Taskbar Clock Customization mod is an incredibly fun toy

Now, I do have a nasty habit of constantly monitoring my PC stats while working. That either consists of keeping HWMonitor open all the time, or frequently switching over to the performance tab in the taskbar, since I don't have an overkill CPU cooler pump with a stat screen.

With Windhawk, though, that part is made incredibly easy, since I can simply add my GPU usage, RAM usage, and CPU usage statistics to the taskbar, right underneath or above the date and time stamp. All it took was adding %cpu% and %ram% to the top line or bottom line fields in the mod's settings. In fact, you can even see your active download and upload speeds in the same area by adding a quick %upload_speed% and %download_speed% command in the same fields.

Furthermore, I can even change the colors of the top and bottom lines with the "Taskbar Clock Customization" mod, down to the width and color of each row. As such, I've painted the system stats (CPU and RAM usage) in green, while the rest remains a default color.

A taskbar on top that brings everything along

Even the Start menu and Notification Center line up

It may have taken Microsoft five full years to finally let users move the taskbar around natively in Windows 11, but Windhawk has been allowing that with its "Taskbar on top for Windows 11" mod for a while now. Not only does it move your entire taskbar to the top of the screen (which a lot of users, myself included, swear is better for productivity), but it also makes sure that the Start menu also pops up from the top instead of from the bottom, which is its default animation. This makes sure that the mod doesn't break immersion.

Speaking of which, you can even pair this with another mod called "Customize Windows notifications placement." With this active along with the taskbar on top mod, even your notifications will pop up from the top instead of from the bottom, thus moving your entire taskbar and control center to the top of the screen, animations included.

Your entire taskbar can become a volume control center

The quickest way to change the volume in Windows 11

Now, changing the volume in Windows 11 isn't a difficult task at all. If your keyboard has a volume control slider, you probably don't ever think twice about it, but Windows 11 does have a lesser-known shortcut for volume control. If you hover your mouse over the volume icon in the system tray, the scroll wheel allows you to increase or decrease your volume.

With Windhawk, however, you can increase the area where you can use the mouse wheel as a shortcut for volume control. In fact, you can even use the entire taskbar as an area for volume control, where all you have to do is have your cursor anywhere on the taskbar for the wheel to control the system volume. The "Taskbar Volume Control" mod in Windhawk even lets you choose specific areas, which is why I've picked the system tray area to be my volume control center. Now, I can even have my cursor on the date and time stamp, or on other system tray icons and still use the wheel to quickly control the system volume of my PC.

Moreover, you can also have a middle-mouse click on the volume tray icon be an instant mute button. Another neat shortcut I discovered was that scrolling on the taskbar this way, with the Windows 7 volume slider option enabled, drops you directly into the volume mixer instead. It's visually jarring, sure, but it definitely beats pressing Ctrl+Win+V and then scrolling down to access it.

Middle-click to close on taskbar

It's the tiny amounts of seconds shaved that count

One thing I love about web browsers is that they provide some rather nifty shortcuts to quicken up your workflow. One of my favorite shortcuts, and an extremely popular one, too, is the middle-mouse click for closing tabs. As much as I love tabbing in File Explorer as well, it does annoy me when I sometimes accidentally click the middle-mouse button to close an open app on the taskbar, only for it to simply pop back up.

Windhawk, thankfully, makes it easier for me with a mod that comes with the most self-explanatory title ever — "Middle click to close on the taskbar." With this mod installed and active, any open apps on the taskbar merely require a quick middle-mouse click to immediately close, making things so much easier.

You can even put the taskbar's empty space to use

This is where the custom shortcuts go

For almost every Windows 11 user, the taskbar is never completely full. Between the quick launch icons in the center and the system tray icons to the right, there's always plenty of space. It's certainly pleasing for the eyes, but it can also benefit power users with some quick shortcuts. With the Windhawk mod titled "Click on empty taskbar space," you can double-click or triple-click any button on the mouse to have a custom shortcut pop up.

This could be as simple as opening up the taskbar, hiding/showing all desktop icons, or even launching an application you set a path to. I myself go with a triple-click for hiding desktop icons, but you can go for pretty much anything you choose. In fact, stay in this mod's settings just a few seconds longer, scroll down, and you'll find a toggle titled "Eager trigger evaluation," which makes the custom action you've set execute faster.

Multiple other quick mods that transform the Windows 11 taskbar

These are the ones that really bend the taskbar to your will

Usually, hovering over an active app's icon on the taskbar, pops up a preview pane for the app. The "Taskbar Thumbnail Size" mod in Windhawk allows you to adjust the size of that preview pane. In fact, you can choose either percentage scaling or integer scaling for the preview pane's resizing.

One of my favorite, most useful mods, however, has to be the "Windows 11 Start Menu Power Buttons" mod. Instead of the single power button in the Start menu that then leads to other power options, this mod simply gives you the Sleep, Hibernate, Shut Down, and Restart buttons on the Start Menu itself. It even adds a confirmation dialog box for a two-step confirmation, since any new mod could take a while to get used to.

There are even some other great tweaks and mods that Windhawk can give to the average user, transforming the Windows 11 user experience. If you haven't already restored the classic context menu in Windows 11, either through a registry editor or by using a tool like WinAero Tweaker, Windhawk lets you do exactly that. With a simple mod titled "Classic context menu on Windows 11," Windhawk immediately restores the classic context menu on right-clicking in Windows 11. In fact, you can also pair it with another mod called "Taskbar classic context menu," which restores classic context menu options when right-clicking on the taskbar's icons.

Windows 11, but finally on your terms

With these tweaks and mods through Windhawk, Windows 11 now feels like a version I'm using that Microsoft never quite shipped. Sure, on the face of it, I've done little more than tweak the taskbar, but it has even restored a sense of ownership that this OS has slowly chipped away over the years.

Every little mod here adds up to something bigger, which is a desktop that behaves the way I expect it to, now. I'm getting used to that level of control now, and the one thing I'm certain of is that there's absolutely no going back to stock Windows 11.