Windows 11 may be Microsoft's best operating system in many ways, but it's also a downgrade from previous versions in many others. There are numerous tools designed to help restore certain parts of the Windows experience to their former glory, and one that I find myself having to recommend is ExplorerPatcher.

I've tried a few paid tools like this in the past, including Start11 and StartAllBack, and while I love them, spending money on some software can be hard to justify. ExplorerPatcher is a free alternative, and it's a great one at that. It can restore things like the Start menu, taskbar, and more, and after setting it up, I have to wonder why I didn't install it sooner.

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Start11 and StartAllBack are the two most popular Start menu replacements out there. We've used them both, so which one is better?

Right off the bat, being able to restore the Windows 10 Start menu with ExplorerPatcher is an extremely welcome change, and the biggest reason to use this app, in my opinion. The Windows 11 Start menu is fine, and I remembered many celebrated the death of live tiles, but in reality, the old layout was just more efficient.

For one thing, the pinned area was fully resizeable, so you had all the space you could want for all your apps. And sure, large live tiles were a waste of sapce, but if you set them to the smallest size possible, the tiles don't look all that different in terms of size from the current icon approach. You just had a ton more space overall and it was easier to have all your apps accessible on one screen.