Arthur smiled, placed his fingers on the keyboard, and typed a single letter.

Curious, he clicked it. The menu didn’t show files. It showed moments. A thumbnail of his daughter’s first birthday party in 2018. A receipt from the diner where he’d proposed in 2012. The pixelated login screen of his first Windows 95 computer, with his teenage username: ShadowBlade99 .

: Hold the Shift key while right-clicking a file or folder to instantly bypass the modern menu and open the legacy version.

The classic Windows 11 menu!

If you're looking for a native solution, Windows 11 does offer some customization options for the Start menu. You can:

Arthur squinted at the luminous, pastel-toned screen of his new work laptop. The machine was a marvel of engineering—silent, wafer-thin, and faster than the supercomputer he’d used in grad school. Yet, he felt a cold trickle of despair.